William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworthwas a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth7 April 1770
dear heart houses lying mighty seem
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;And all that mighty heart is lying still!
above himself poor unless
And that unless above himself he canErect himself, how poor a thing is man.
yellow
A primrose by a river's brimA yellow primrose was to him,And it was nothing more.
conclude good poem poet produced
A poet who has not produced a good poem before he is twenty-five, we may conclude cannot, and never will do so.
bow custom growing life light moves potent substitute universe vulgar weight
The tendency, too potent in itself,Of use and custom to bow down the soulUnder a growing weight of vulgar sense,And substitute a universe of deathFor that which moves with light and life informed,Actual, divine, and true.
battles numbers perhaps
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flowFor old, unhappy, far-off things,And battles long ago.
bosom sea sleeping winds
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;The winds that will be howling at all hours,And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;For this, for everything, we are out of tune.
beside grew human sweetest
The sweetest thing that ever grew / Beside a human door!
absolute appears glory science truth
Science appears but what in truth she is,/ Not as our glory and our absolute boast,/ But as a succedaneum, and a prop/ To our infirmity.
communion imperfect offices praise prayer
Rapt into still communion that transcends/ The imperfect offices of prayer and praise.
belief faith passionate persuasion whom
One in whom persuasion and beliefHad ripened into faith, and faith becomeA passionate intuition.
evil impulse moral teach wood
One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can.
looks rough sings smooth solitary trips whistles
O'er rough and smooth she trips along,/ And never looks behind;/ And sings a solitary song/ That whistles in the wind.
dearest heart hundredth lore seldom teach thee
O dearest, dearest boy! my heartFor better lore would seldom yearn,Could I but teach the hundredth partOf what from thee I learn.