Spanish Guerillas by William Wordsworth
THEY seek, are sought; to daily battle led, Shrink not, though far outnumbered by their Foes, For they have learnt to open and to close The ridges of grim war; and at their head Are captains such as erst their country bred Or fostered, self-supported chiefs,–like those Whom hardy Rome was fearful to oppose; Whose […]
Sonnet: On seeing Miss Helen Maria Williams weep at a tale of distress by William Wordsworth
She wept.–Life’s purple tide began to flow In languid streams through every thrilling vein; Dim were my swimming eyes–my pulse beat slow, And my full heart was swell’d to dear delicious pain. Life left my loaded heart, and closing eye; A sigh recall’d the wanderer to my breast; Dear was the pause of life, and […]
Sonnet: “It is not to be thought of” by William Wordsworth
IT is not to be thought of that the Flood Of British freedom, which, to the open sea Of the world’s praise, from dark antiquity Hath flowed, “with pomp of waters, unwithstood,” Roused though it be full often to a mood Which spurns the check of salutary bands, That this most famous Stream in bogs […]
Song Of The Wandering Jew by William Wordsworth
THOUGH the torrents from their fountains Roar down many a craggy steep, Yet they find among the mountains Resting-places calm and deep. Clouds that love through air to hasten, Ere the storm its fury stills, Helmet-like themselves will fasten On the heads of towering hills. What, if through the frozen centre Of the Alps the […]
Song Of The Spinning Wheel by William Wordsworth
FOUNDED UPON A BELIEF PREVALENT AMONG THE PASTORAL VALES OF WESTMORELAND SWIFTLY turn the murmuring wheel! Night has brought the welcome hour, When the weary fingers feel Help, as if from faery power; Dewy night o’ershades the ground; Turn the swift wheel round and round! Now, beneath the starry sky, Couch the widely-scattered sheep;– Ply […]
Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle by William Wordsworth
High in the breathless Hall the Minstrel sate, And Emont’s murmur mingled with the Song.- The words of ancient time I thus translate, A festal strain that hath been silent long:- “From town to town, from tower to tower, The red rose is a gladsome flower. Her thirty years of winter past, The red rose […]
Simon Lee: The Old Huntsman by William Wordsworth
. With an incident in which he was concerned In the sweet shire of Cardigan, Not far from pleasant Ivor-hall, An old Man dwells, a little man,- ‘Tis said he once was tall. For five-and-thirty years he lived A running huntsman merry; And still the centre of his cheek Is red as a ripe cherry. […]
Siege Of Vienna Raised By Jihn Sobieski by William Wordsworth
FEBRUARY 1816 OH, for a kindling touch from that pure flame Which ministered, erewhile, to a sacrifice Of gratitude, beneath Italian skies, In words like these: ‘Up, Voice of song! proclaim ‘Thy saintly rapture with celestial aim: ‘For lo! the Imperial City stands released ‘From bondage threatened by the embattled East, ‘And Christendom respires; from […]
September, 1819 by William Wordsworth
Departing summer hath assumed An aspect tenderly illumed, The gentlest look of spring; That calls from yonder leafy shade Unfaded, yet prepared to fade, A timely carolling. No faint and hesitating trill, Such tribute as to winter chill The lonely redbreast pays! Clear, loud, and lively is the din, From social warblers gathering in Their […]
September 1815 by William Wordsworth
WHILE not a leaf seems faded; while the fields, With ripening harvest prodigally fair, In brightest sunshine bask; this nipping air, Sent from some distant clime where Winter wields His icy scimitar, a foretaste yields Of bitter change, and bids the flowers beware; And whispers to the silent birds, “Prepare Against the threatening foe your […]
September 1, 1802 by William Wordsworth
WE had a female Passenger who came From Calais with us, spotless in array,– A white-robed Negro, like a lady gay, Yet downcast as a woman fearing blame; Meek, destitute, as seemed, of hope or aim She sate, from notice turning not away, But on all proffered intercourse did lay A weight of languid speech, […]
Scorn Not The Sonnet by William Wordsworth
Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned, Mindless of its just honours; with this key Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch’s wound; A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound; With it Camöens soothed an exile’s grief; The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf Amid the […]
Say, What Is Honour?–‘Tis The Finest Sense by William Wordsworth
SAY, what is Honour?–‘Tis the finest sense Of ‘justice’ which the human mind can frame, Intent each lurking frailty to disclaim, And guard the way of life from all offence Suffered or done. When lawless violence Invades a Realm, so pressed that in the scale Of perilous war her weightiest armies fail, Honour is hopeful […]
Rural Architecture by William Wordsworth
THERE’S George Fisher, Charles Fleming, and Reginald Shore, Three rosy-cheeked school-boys, the highest not more Than the height of a counsellor’s bag; To the top of Great How did it please them to climb: And there they built up, without mortar or lime, A Man on the peak of the crag. They built him of […]
Repentance by William Wordsworth
A PASTORAL BALLAD THE fields which with covetous spirit we sold, Those beautiful fields, the delight of the day, Would have brought us more good than a burthen of gold, Could we but have been as contented as they. When the troublesome Tempter beset us, said I, “Let him come, with his purse proudly grasped […]
Power Of Music by William Wordsworth
AN Orpheus! an Orpheus! yes, Faith may grow bold, And take to herself all the wonders of old;– Near the stately Pantheon you’ll meet with the same In the street that from Oxford hath borrowed its name. His station is there; and he works on the crowd, He sways them with harmony merry and loud; […]
On The Same Occasion by William Wordsworth
(The Final Submission Of The Tyrolese) YE Storms, resound the praises of your King! And ye mild Seasons–in a sunny clime, Midway on some high hill, while father Time Looks on delighted–meet in festal ring, And loud and long of Winter’s triumph sing! Sing ye, with blossoms crowned, and fruits, and flowers, Of Winter’s breath […]
On The Final Submission Of The Tyrolese by William Wordsworth
IT was a ‘moral’ end for which they fought; Else how, when mighty Thrones were put to shame, Could they, poor Shepherds, have preserved an aim, A resolution, or enlivening thought? Nor hath that moral good been ‘vainly’ sought; For in their magnanimity and fame Powers have they left, an impulse, and a claim Which […]
On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic by William Wordsworth
. Once did She hold the gorgeous east in fee; And was the safeguard of the west: the worth Of Venice did not fall below her birth, Venice, the eldest Child of Liberty. She was a maiden City, bright and free; No guile seduced, no force could violate; And, when she took unto herself a […]
On the Departure of Sir Walter Scott from Abbotsford by William Wordsworth
. A trouble, not of clouds, or weeping rain, Nor of the setting sun’s pathetic light Engendered, hangs o’er Eildon’s triple height: Spirits of Power, assembled there, complain For kindred Power departing from their sight; While Tweed, best pleased in chanting a blithe strain, Saddens his voice again, and yet again. Lift up your hearts, […]
On A Celebrated Event In Ancient History by William Wordsworth
A ROMAN Master stands on Grecian ground, And to the people at the Isthmian Games Assembled, He, by a herald’s voice, proclaims THE LIBERTY OF GREECE:–the words rebound Until all voices in one voice are drowned; Glad acclamation by which air was rent! And birds, high-flying in the element, Dropped to the earth, astonished at […]
O’erweening Statesmen Have Full Long Relied by William Wordsworth
O’ERWEENING Statesmen have full long relied On fleets and armies, and external wealth: But from ‘within’ proceeds a Nation’s health; Which shall not fail, though poor men cleave with pride To the paternal floor; or turn aside, In the thronged city, from the walks of gain, As being all unworthy to detain A Soul by […]
O’er The Wide Earth, On Mountain And On Plain by William Wordsworth
O’ER the wide earth, on mountain and on plain, Dwells in the affections and the soul of man A Godhead, like the universal PAN; But more exalted, with a brighter train: And shall his bounty be dispensed in vain, Showered equally on city and on field, And neither hope nor steadfast promise yield In these […]
October, 1803 by William Wordsworth
. These times strike monied worldlings with dismay: Even rich men, brave by nature, taint the air With words of apprehension and despair: While tens of thousands, thinking on the affray, Men unto whom sufficient for the day And minds not stinted or untilled are given, Sound, healthy, children of the God of heaven, Are […]
November 1813 by William Wordsworth
Now that all hearts are glad, all faces bright, Our aged Sovereign sits, to the ebb and flow Of states and kingdoms, to their joy or woe, Insensible. He sits deprived of sight, And lamentably wrapt in twofold night, Whom no weak hopes deceived; whose mind ensued, Through perilous war, with regal fortitude, Peace that […]
November, 1806 by William Wordsworth
Another year!-another deadly blow! Another mighty Empire overthrown! And We are left, or shall be left, alone; The last that dare to struggle with the Foe. ‘Tis well! from this day forward we shall know That in ourselves our safety must be sought; That by our own right hands it must be wrought; That we […]
My Heart Leaps Up by William Wordsworth
My heart leaps up when I behold A Rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die! The Child is father of the man; And I wish my days to be Bound each […]
Mutability by William Wordsworth
. From low to high doth dissolution climb, And sink from high to low, along a scale Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail; A musical but melancholy chime, Which they can hear who meddle not with crime, Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care. Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear The longest […]
Minstrels by William Wordsworth
The minstrels played their Christmas tune To-night beneath my cottage-eaves; While, smitten by a lofty moon, The encircling laurels, thick with leaves, Gave back a rich and dazzling sheen, That overpowered their natural green. Through hill and valley every breeze Had sunk to rest with folded wings: Keen was the air, but could not freeze, […]
Michael Angelo In Reply To The Passage Upon His Staute Of Sleeping Night by William Wordsworth
‘Night Speaks’ GRATEFUL is Sleep, my life in stone bound fast; More grateful still: while wrong and shame shall last, On me can Time no happier state bestow Than to be left unconscious of the woe. Ah then, lest you awaken me, speak low. Grateful is Sleep, more grateful still to be Of marble; for […]
Memory by William Wordsworth
A pen-to register; a key- That winds through secret wards Are well assigned to Memory By allegoric Bards. As aptly, also, might be given A Pencil to her hand; That, softening objects, sometimes even Outstrips the heart’s demand; That smooths foregone distress, the lines Of lingering care subdues, Long-vanished happiness refines, And clothes in brighter […]
Memorials Of A Tour Of Scotland, 1803 VI. Glen-Almain, Or, The Narrow Glen by William Wordsworth
IN this still place, remote from men, Sleeps Ossian, in the NARROW GLEN; In this still place, where murmurs on But one meek streamlet, only one: He sang of battles, and the breath Of stormy war, and violent death; And should, methinks, when all was past, Have rightfully been laid at last Where rocks were […]
Memorials Of A Tour In Scotland, by William Wordsworth
THOUGHTS SUGGESTED THE DAY FOLLOWING, ON THE BANKS OF NITH, NEAR THE POET’S RESIDENCE TOO frail to keep the lofty vow That must have followed when his brow Was wreathed–“The Vision” tells us how– With holly spray, He faltered, drifted to and fro, And passed away. Well might such thoughts, dear Sister, throng Our minds […]
Memorials Of A Tour In Scotland, 1803 XIV. Fly, Some Kind Haringer, To Grasmere-Dale by William Wordsworth
FLY, some kind Harbinger, to Grasmere-dale! Say that we come, and come by this day’s light; Fly upon swiftest wing round field and height, But chiefly let one Cottage hear the tale; There let a mystery of joy prevail, The kitten frolic, like a gamesome sprite, And Rover whine, as at a second sight Of […]
Matthew by William Wordsworth
IF Nature, for a favourite child, In thee hath tempered so her clay, That every hour thy heart runs wild, Yet never once doth go astray, Read o’er these lines; and then review This tablet, that thus humbly rears In such diversity of hue Its history of two hundred years. –When through this little wreck […]
Mark The Concentrated Hazels That Enclose by William Wordsworth
MARK the concentred hazels that enclose Yon old grey Stone, protected from the ray Of noontide suns:–and even the beams that play And glance, while wantonly the rough wind blows, Are seldom free to touch the moss that grows Upon that roof, amid embowering gloom, The very image framing of a Tomb, In which some […]
Lucy Gray [or Solitude] by William Wordsworth
Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray, And when I cross’d the Wild, I chanc’d to see at break of day The solitary Child. No Mate, no comrade Lucy knew; She dwelt on a wild Moor, The sweetest Thing that ever grew Beside a human door! You yet may spy the Fawn at play, The […]
Look Now On That Adventurer Who Hath Paid by William Wordsworth
LOOK now on that Adventurer who hath paid His vows to Fortune; who, in cruel slight Of virtuous hope, of liberty, and right, Hath followed wheresoe’er a way was made By the blind Goddess,–ruthless, undismayed; And so hath gained at length a prosperous height, Round which the elements of worldly might Beneath his haughty feet, […]
Lines Written On A Blank Leaf In A Copy Of The Author’s Poem “The Excursion,” by William Wordsworth
Upon Hearing Of The Death Of The Late Vicar Of Kendal TO public notice, with reluctance strong, Did I deliver this unfinished Song; Yet for one happy issue;–and I look With self-congratulation on the Book Which pious, learned, MURFITT saw and read;– Upon my thoughts his saintly Spirit fed; He conned the new-born Lay with […]
Lines Written In Early Spring by William Wordsworth
I HEARD a thousand blended notes, While in a grove I sate reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind. To her fair works did Nature link The human soul that through me ran; And much it grieved my heart to think What man has made of man. Through […]