209 William Wordsworth Quotes

William Wordsworth quotes

1. Oh, be wiser thou! Instructed that true knowledge leads to love.

2. And homeless near a thousand homes I stood, And near a thousand tables pined and wanted food.

3. There's something in a flying horse, There's something in a huge balloon; But through the clouds I'll never float Until I have a little Boat, Shaped like the crescent-moon.

4. A primrose by a river's brim A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more.

5. I traveled among unknown men, In lands beyond the sea; Nor, England! did I know till then What love I bore to thee.

6. Much converse do I find in thee, Historian of my infancy! Float near me; do not yet depart! Dead times revive in thee: Thou bring'st, gay creature as thou art! A solemn image to my heart.

7. Behold, within the leafy shade, Those bright blue eggs together laid! On me the chance-discovered sight Gleamed like a vision of delight.

8. She gave me eyes, she gave me ears; And humble cares,and delicate fears; A heart, the fountain of sweet tears; And love, and thought, and joy.

9. Sweet childish days, that were as long As twenty days are now.

10. Like an army defeated The snow hath retreated, And now doth fare ill On the top of the bare hill; The Ploughboy is whooping- anon- anon! There's joy in the mountains: There's life in the fountains; Small clouds are sailing, Blue sky prevailing; The rain is over and gone.

11. 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; I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety.

12. Earth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie Open unto the fields and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

13. Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!

14. Rapine, avarice, expense This is idolatry; and these we adore: Plain living and high thinking are no more: The homely beauty of the good old cause Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence, And pure religion breathing household laws.

15. O for a single hour of that Dundee, Who on that day the word of onset gave!

16. Pleasures newly found are sweet When they lie about our feet.

17. Every gift of noble origin Is breathed upon by Hope's perpetual breath.

18. Hail to thee, far above the rest In joy of voice and pinion! Thou, linnet! in thy green array, Presiding spirit here to-day, Dost lead the revels of the May; And this is thy dominion.

19. Lady of the Mere, Sole-sitting by the shores of old romance.

20. There is a Yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale, Which to this day stands single, in the midst Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore.

21. Of vast circumference and gloom profound, This solitary Tree! A living thing Produced too slowly ever to decay; Of form and aspect too magnificent To be destroyed.

22. Bright flower! whose home is everywhere Bold in maternal nature's care And all the long year through the heir Of joy or sorrow, Methinks that there abides in thee Some concord with humanity, Given to no other flower I see The forest through.

23. O Blithe newcomer! I have heard, I hear thee and rejoice. O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird, Or but a wandering Voice?

24. No bird, but an invisible thing, A voice, a mystery.

25. Thou unassuming Common-place Of Nature, with that homely face, And yet with something of a grace, Which Love makes for thee!

26. Oft on the dappled turf at ease I sit, and play with similes, Loose types of things through all degrees.

27. The light that never was, on sea or land, The consecration, and the poet's dream.

28. Dear Child of Nature, let them rail!

29. Thou, while thy babes around thee cling, Shalt show us how divine a thing A Woman may be made.

30. But an old age serene and bright, And lovely as a Lapland night, Shall lead thee to thy grave.

31. Happier of happy though I be, like them I cannot take possession of the sky, Mount with a thoughtless impulse, and wheel there One of a mighty multitude whose way Is a perpetual harmony and dance Magnificent.

32. Is there not An art, a music, and a stream of words That shalt be life, the acknowledged voice of life?

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

33. Not Chaos, not The darkest pit of lowest Erebus, Nor aught of blinder vacancy, scooped out By help of dreams - can breed such fear and awe As fall upon us often when we look Into our Minds, into the Mind of Man.

34. She hath smiles to earth unknown- Smiles that with motion of their own Do spread, and sink, and rise.

35. Like-but oh, how different!

36. In truth the prison, unto which we doom Ourselves, no prison is.

37. The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

38. Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

39. Where lies the Land to which yon Ship must go? Fresh as a lark mounting at break of day, Festively she puts forth in trim array.

40. Come, blessed barrier between day and day, Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!

41. Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know, Are a substantial world, both pure and good: Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, Our pastime and our happiness will grow.

42. Every great and original writer, in proportion as he is great and original, must himself create the taste by which he is to be relished.

43. I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy, The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride; Of Him who walked in glory and in joy Following his plough, along the mountain-side: By our own spirits are we deified: We Poets in our youth begin in gladness; But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.

44. Choice word and measured phrase, above the reach Of ordinary men.

45. And mighty poets in their misery dead.

46. It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, The holy time is quiet as a Nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquillity; The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea.

47. Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year; And worship'st at the Temple's inner shrine, God being with thee when we know it not.

48. 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.

49. Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade Of that which once was great, is passed away.

50. Thou hast great allies; Thy friends are exultations, agonies, And love, and man's unconquerable mind.

51. Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour: England hath need of thee: she is a fen Of stagnant waters.

52. Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart: Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life's common way, In cheerful godliness.

53. We must be free or die, who speak the tongue That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold Which Milton held.

54. He sang of love, with quiet blending, Slow to begin, and never ending; Of serious faith, and inward glee; That was the song,- the song for me!

55. Two Voices are there; one is of the sea, One of the mountains; each a mighty Voice.

56. Love had he found in huts where poor men lie; His daily teachers had been woods and rills, The silence that is in the starry sky, The sleep that is among the lonely hills.

57. Action is transitory - a step, a blow- The motion of a muscle- this way or that- 'Tis done; and in the after-vacancy We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed.

58. A few strong instincts and a few plain rules, Among the herdsmen of the Alps, have wrought More for mankind at this unhappy day Then all the pride of intellect and thought?

59. Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.

60. A cheerful life is what the Muses love, A soaring spirit is their prime delight.

61. For the gods approve The depth, and not the tumult, of the soul.

62. Mightier far Than strength of nerve or sinew, or the sway Of magic potent over sun and star, Is Love, though oft to agony distrest, And though his favorite seat be feeble woman's breast.

63. But shapes that come not at an earthly call, Will not depart when mortal voices bid.

64. Surprised by joy-impatient as the Wind.

65. And beauty, for confiding youth, Those shocks of passion can prepare That kill the bloom before its time; And blanch, without the owner's crime, The most resplendent hair.

66. What is pride? A whizzing rocket That would emulate a star.

67. Enough, if something from our hands have power To live, and act, and serve the future hour.

68. We feel that we are greater than we know.

69. The flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly.

70. Lives there a man whose sole delights Are trivial pomp and city noise, Hardening a heart that loathes or slights What every natural heart enjoys?

71. A soul so pitiably forlorn, If such do on this earth abide, May season apathy with scorn, May turn indifference to pride; And still be not unblest- compared With him who grovels, self-debarred From all that lies within the scope Of holy faith and christian hope; Or, shipwrecked, kindles on the coast False fires, that others may be lost.

72. But hushed be every thought that springs From out the bitterness of things.

73. True beauty dwells in deep retreats, Whose veil is unremoved Till heart with heart in concord beats, And the lover is beloved.

74. Type of the wise who soar, but never roam; True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!

75. Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned, Mindless of its just honours; with this key Shakespeare unlocked his heart

76. Ocean is a mighty harmonist.

77. These feeble and fastidious times.

78. Myriads of daisies have shone forth in flower Near the lark's nest, and in their natural hour Have passed away; less happy than the one That by the unwilling ploughshare died to prove The tender charm of poetry and love.

79. Small service is true service while it lasts. Of humblest friends, bright creature! scorn not one: The daisy, by the shadow that it casts, Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun.

80. How does the Meadow-flower its bloom unfold? Because the lovely little flower is free Down to its root, and, in that freedom, bold.

81. Minds that have nothing to confer Find little to perceive.

82. Thought and theory must precede all action that moves to salutary purposes. Yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory.

83. Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all Science.

84. The human mind is capable of excitement without the application of gross and violent stimulants; and he must have a very faint perception of its beauty and dignity who does not know this.

85. In spite of difference of soil and climate, of language and manners, of laws and customs-in spite of things silently gone out of mind, and things violently destroyed, the Poet binds together by passion and knowledge the vast empire of human society, as it is spread over the whole earth, and over all time.

86. A multitude of causes unknown to former times are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and unfitting it for all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor.

87. What is a Poet?...He is a man speaking to men: a man, it is true, endowed with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among mankind; a man pleased with his own passions and volitions, and who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him; delighting to contemplate similar volitions and passions as manifested in the goings-on of the Universe, and habitually impelled to create them where he does not find them.

88. I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.

89. All men feel something of an honorable bigotry for the objects which have long continued to please them.

90. - A simple child, That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb, What should it know of death?

91. In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

92. Have I not reason to lament What man has made of man?

93. The eye- it cannot choose but see; we cannot bid the ear be still; our bodies feel, where'er they be, against or with our will.

94. Nor less I deem that there are Powers Which of themselves our minds impress; That we can feed this mind of ours In a wise passiveness.

95. Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher.

96. One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can.

97. O Reader! had you in your mind Such stores as silent thought can bring, O gentle Reader! you would find A tale in everything.

98. I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds With coldness still returning; Alas! the gratitude of men Hath oftener left me mourning.

99. What fond and wayward thoughts will slide Into a lover's head! 'O mercy!' to myself I cried, 'If Lucy should be dead!'

100. She dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove, A maid whom there were none to praise And very few to love:

101. She lived unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceased to be; But she is in her grave, and, oh, The difference to me!

102. Three years she grew in sun and shower, Then Nature said, 'A lovelier flower On earth was never sown; This Child I to myself will take; She shall be mine, and I will make A Lady of my own.'

103. A slumber did my spirit seal; I had no human fears: She seemed a thing that could not feel The touch of earthly years. No motion has she now, no force; She neither hears nor sees; Rolled round in earth's diurnal course, With rocks, and stones, and trees.

104. A fingering slave, One that would peep and botanize Upon his mother's grave.

105. A reasoning, self-sufficing thing, An intellectual All-in-all!

106. And you must love him, ere to you He will seem worthy of your love.

107. The sweetest thing that ever grew Beside a human door!

108. And sings a solitary song That whistles in the wind.

109. A youth to whom was given So much of earth-so much of heaven, And such impetuous blood.

110. My eyes are dim with childish tears, My heart is idly stirred, For the same sound is in my ears Which in those days I heard. Thus fares it still in our decay: And yet the wiser mind Mourns less for what age takes away Than what it leaves behind.

111. Something between a hindrance and a help.

112. Drink, pretty creature, drink!

113. May no rude hand deface it, And its forlorn Hic jacet!

114. Five years have passed; five summers, with the length Of five long winters! and again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a sweet inland murmur. -Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, Which on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

115. These beauteous forms, Through a long absence, have not been to me As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; And passing even into my purer mind, With tranquil restoration: -feelings too Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps, As have no slight or trivial influence On that best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world Is lighten'd:- that serene and blessed mood, In which the affections gently lead us on,- Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things.

116. O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods, How often has my spirit turned to thee!

117. And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, With many recognitions dim and faint, And somewhat of a sad perplexity, The picture of the mind revives again: While here I stand, not only with the sense Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts That in this moment there is life and food For future years. And so I dare to hope, Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first I came among these hills;

118. For nature then (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days, And their glad animal movements all gone by) To me was all in all.- I cannot paint What then I was.

119. The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite; a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, nor any interest Unborrowed from the eye.

120. That time is past, And all its aching joys are now no more, And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur, other gifts Have followed; for such loss, I would believe, Abundant recompence. For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still, sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods, And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world Of eye, and ear,-both what they half create, And what perceive; well pleased to recognise In nature and the language of the sense, The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being.

121. Nor, perchance, If I were not thus taught, Should I the more Suffer my genial spirits to decay: For thou art with me here upon the banks Of this fair river; thou, my dearest Friend, My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch The language of my former heart, and read My former pleasures in the shooting lights Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while May I behold in thee what I was once, My dear, dear Sister! And this prayer I make, Knowing that Nature never did betray The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege, Through all the years of this our life, to lead From joy to joy: for she can so inform The mind that is within us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all The dreary intercourse of daily life, Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb Our cheerful faith that all which we behold Is full of blessings.

122. If I should be, where I no more can hear Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams Of past existence, wilt thou then forget That on the banks of this delightful stream We stood together; And that I, so long A worshipper of Nature, hither came, Unwearied in that service: rather say With warmer love, oh! with far deeper zeal Of holier love. Now wilt thou then forget, That after many wanderings, many years Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, And this green pastoral landscape, were to me More dear, both for themselves, and for thy sake.

123. Oh there is blessing in this gentle breeze, A visitant that while it fans my cheek Doth seem half-conscious of the joy it brings From the green fields, and from yon azure sky. Whate'er its mission, the soft breeze can come To none more grateful than to me; escaped From the vast city, where I long had pined A discontented sojourner: now free, Free as a bird to settle where I will.

124. Fair seedtime had my soul, and I grew up Fostered alike by beauty and by fear.

125. Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows Like harmony in music; there is a dark Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles Discordant elements, makes them cling together In one society.

126. The grim shape Towered up between me and the stars, and still, For so it seemed, with purpose of its own And measured motion like a living thing, Strode after me.

127. Huge and mighty forms, that do not live Like living men, moved slowly through the mind By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.

128. Where the statue stood Of Newton with his prism and silent face, The marble index of a mind forever Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.

129. When from our better selves we have too long Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop, Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired, How gracious, how benign, is Solitude.

130. A day Spent in a round of strenuous idleness.

131. Whether we be young or old, Our destiny, our being's heart and home, Is with infinitude, and only there; With hope it is, hope that can never die, Effort and expectation, and desire, And something evermore about to be.

132. Brothers all In honor, as in one community, Scholars and gentlemen.

133. Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!

134. There is One great society alone on earth: The noble Living and the noble Dead.

135. Sweet Mercy! to the gates of Heaven This minstrel lead, his sins forgiven; The rueful conflict, the heart riven With vain endeavour, And memory of earth's bitter leaven Effaced forever.

136. And stepping westward seemed to be A kind of heavenly destiny.

137. I listened, motionless and still; And, as I mounted up the hill, The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more.

138. Yet was Rob Roy as wise as brave; Forgive me if the phrase be strong;- A Poet worthy of Rob Roy Must scorn a timid song.

139. Burn all the statutes and their shelves: They stir us up against our kind; And worse, against ourselves.

140. The good old rule Sufficeth them, the simple plan, That they should take, who have the power, And they should keep who can.

141. A brotherhood of venerable trees.

142. From Stirling Castle we had seen The mazy Forth unravelled; Had trod the banks of Clyde and Tay, And with the Tweed had travelled; And when we came to Clovenford, Then said 'my winsome marrow,' 'Whate'er betide, we'll turn aside, And see the braes of Yarrow.'

143. She was a Phantom of delight When first she gleamed upon my sight; A lovely Apparition, sent To be a moment's ornament.

144. A Creature not too bright or good For human nature's daily food; For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.

145. And now I see with eye serene The very pulse of the machine.

146. A perfect woman, nobly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command.

147. I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils. Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

148. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way.

149. Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tosing their heads in sprightly dance.

150. A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company.

151. That inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude.

152. A light to guide, a rod To check the erring, and reprove.

153. Me this unchartered freedom tires; I feel the weight of chance-desires: My hopes no more must change their name, I long for a repose that ever is the same.

154. Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong.

155. Give unto me, made lowly wise, The spirit of self-sacrifice; The confidence of reason give, And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live!

156. Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he That every man in arms should wish to be?

157. Who, doomed to go in company with Pain, And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train! Turns his necessity to glorious gain.

158. More skillful in self-knowledge, even more pure, As tempted more; more able to endure, As more exposed to suffering and distress.

159. But who, if he be called upon to face Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined Great issues, good or bad for human kind, Is happy as a Lover.

160. And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw.

161. Whom neither shape of danger can dismay, Nor thought of tender happiness betray.

162. There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore- Turn wheresoe'er I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

163. The Rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the Rose, The Moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare; Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair; The sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where'er I go, That there hath past away a glory from the earth.

164. Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call Ye to each other make; I see The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; My heart is at your festival, My head hath its coronal, The fulness of your bliss, I feel- I feel it all. Oh evil day! if I were sullen While the Earth herself is adorning, This sweet May-morning.

165. Whither is fled the visionary gleam? Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

166. Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing boy.

167. The youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature's priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended; At length the man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day.

168. As if his whole vocation Were endless imitation.

169. Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie Thy Soul's immensity; Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind, That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep, Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,- Mighty Prophet! Seer blest! On whom those truths do rest, Which we are toiling all our lives to find, In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave.

170. O joy! that in our embers Is something that doth live, That nature yet remembers What was so fugitive! The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction: not indeed For that which is most worthy to be blest; Delight and liberty, the simple creed Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:- Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise; But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanishings; Blank misgivings of a Creature Moving about in worlds not realised, High instincts before which our mortal Nature Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprised: But for those first affections, Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, Are yet a master-light of all our seeing; Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake, To perish never; Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor, Nor Man nor Boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy!

171. Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song! And let the young Lambs bound As to the tabor's sound! We in thought will join your throng, Ye that pipe and ye that play, Ye that through your hearts today Feel the gladness of the May! What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now forever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind; In the primal sympathy Which having been must ever be; In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering; In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind.

172. And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Forebode not any severing of our loves! Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might; I only have relinquished one delight To live beneath your more habitual sway. I love the Brooks which down their channels fret, Even more than when I tripped lightly as they; The innocent brightness of a new-born Day Is lovely yet; The Clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober colouring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; Another race hath been, and other palms are won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

173. Strongest minds Are often those of whom the noisy world Hears least.

174. The imperfect offices of prayer and praise.

175. The good die first, And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust Burn to the socket.

176. Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop Than when we soar.

177. Wrongs unredressed, or insults unavenged.

178. The intellectual power, through words and things, Went sounding on, a dim and perilous way!

179. Society became my glittering bride.

180. For by superior energies; more strict Affiance in each other; faith more firm In their unhallowed principles; the bad Have fairly earned a victory o'er the weak, The vacillating, inconsistent good.

181. There is a luxury in self-dispraise; And inward self-disparagement affords To meditative spleen a grateful feast.

182. Lost in a gloom of uninspired research.

183. We live by Admiration, Hope and Love.

184. I have seen A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract Of inland ground, applying to his ear The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell; To which, in silence hushed, his very soul Listened intensely; and his countenance soon Brightened with joy; for from within were heard Murmurings, whereby the monitor expressed Mysterious union with its native sea.

185. One in whom persuasion and belief Had ripened into faith, and faith become A passionate intuition.

186. Spires whose 'silent finger points to heaven.'

187. Wild is the music of the autumnal wind Among the faded woods.

188. A man he seems of cheerful yesterdays And confident tomorrows.

189. As thou these ashes, little brook! will bear Into the Avon, Avon to the tide Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas, Into main ocean they, this deed accurst, An emblem yields to friends and enemies How the bold teacher's doctrine, sanctified By truth, shall spread throughout the world dispersed.

190. Habit rules the unreflecting herd.

191. The feather, whence the pen Was shaped that traced the lives of these good men, Dropped from an Angel's wing.

192. Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore Of nicely calculated less or more.

193. In modern business it is not the crook who is to be feared most, it is the honest man who doesn't know what he is doing.

194. Life is divided into three terms - that which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present to live better in the future.

195. To begin, begin.

196. Be wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer.

197. How blessings brighten as they take their flight!

198. Life's cares are comforts; such by Heav'n design'd; He that hath none must make them, or be wretched.

     Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

199. Pictures deface walls more often than they decorate them.

200. We take no note of time but from its loss.

201. What we need is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out.

202. If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.

     Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

203. Just for a handful of silver he left us, Just for a riband to stick in his coat.

     Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

204. He lived amidst th'untrodden ways To Rydal Lake that lead:- A bard whom there were none to praise, And very few to read. Behind a cloud his mystic sense, Deep-hidden, who can spy? Bright as the night, when not a star Is shining in the sky. Unread his works - his 'Milk-white Doe' With dust is dark and dim; It's still in Longman's shop, and Oh! The difference to him!

205. He is in this sense the most original poet now living, and the one whose writings could the least be spared: for they have no substitute elsewhere. The vulgar do not read them; the learned, who see all things through books, do not understand them; the great despise. The fashionable may ridicule them: but the author has created himself an interest in the heart of the retired and lonely student of nature, which can never die.

206. But that which Wordsworth knew, even the old man When poetry had failed like desire, was something I have yet to learn, and you, Duddon, Have learned and re-learned to forget and forget again. Not the radical, the poet and heretic, To whom the water-forces shouted and the fells Were like a blackboard for the scrawls of God, But the old man, inarticulate and humble, Knew that eternity flows in a mountain beck.

207. He wasn't a man as was thowte a deal o' for his potry when he was hereabout. It hed no laugh in it same as Lile Hartley [Coleridge]'s, bided a deal o makkin I darsay. It was kept oer long in his heead mappen. But then for aw that, he had best eye to mountains and streams, and buildings in the daale, notished ivvry stean o' the fellside, and we nin on us durst bang a bowder stean a bit or cut a bit coppy or raase an old wa' doon when he was astir.

208. Two voices are there: one is of the deep; It learns the storm-cloud's thunderous melody, Now roars, now murmurs with the changing sea, Now bird-like pipes, now closes soft in sleep: And one is of an old half-witted sheep Which bleats articulate monotony, And indicates that two and one are three, That grass is green, lakes damp, and mountains steep And, Wordsworth, both are thine.

209. Wordsworth went to the lakes, but he was never a lake poet. He found in stones the sermons he had already hidden there.

     Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.