William Wordsworth
Lyrical Ballads (Preface: 1800)
[…] The principal object proposed in these Poems was to choose incidents and situations
from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible in a
selection of language really used by men, and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain
colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an
unusual aspect; and, further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting
by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as
far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement. Humble and
rustic life was generally chosen, because, in that condition, the essential passions of the heart
find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a
plainer and more emphatic language; because in that condition of life our elementary feelings
coexist in a state of greater simplicity, and, consequently, may be more accurately
contemplated, and more forcibly communicated; because the manners of rural life germinate
from those elementary feelings, and, from the necessary character of rural occupations, are
more easily comprehended, and are more durable; and, lastly, because in that condition the
passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature. […]
All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: and though this be true,
Poems to which any value can be attached were never produced on any variety of subjects but
by a man who, being possessed of more than usual organic sensibility, had also thought long
and deeply. For our continued influxes of feeling are modified and directed by our thoughts,
which are indeed the representatives of all our past feelings […]
I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin
from emotion recollected in tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of
reaction, the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was
before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the
mind. In this mood successful composition generally begins, and in a mood similar to this it is
carried on; but the emotion, of whatever kind, and in whatever degree, from various causes, is
qualified by various pleasures, so that in describing any passions whatsoever, which are
voluntarily described, the mind will, upon the whole, be in a state of enjoyment. […] Now the
music of harmonious metrical language, the sense of difficulty overcome, and the blind
association of pleasure which has been previously received from works of rhyme or metre of
the same or similar construction, an indistinct perception perpetually renewed of language
closely resembling that of real life, and yet, in the circumstance of metre, differing from it so
widely—all these imperceptibly make up a complex feeling of delight, which is of the most
important use in tempering the painful feeling always found intermingled with powerful
descriptions of the deeper passions.
"Expostulation and Reply"
"Why, William, on that old gray stone,
Thus for the length of half a day,
Why, William, sit you thus alone,
And dream your time away?
"Where are your books? -- that light bequeathed
To Beings else forlorn and blind!
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Up! up! and drink the spirit breathed
From dead men to their kind.
"You look round on your Mother Earth,
As if she for no purpose bore you;
As if you were her first-born birth,
And none had lived before you!"
One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake,
When life was sweet, I knew not why,
To me my good friend Matthew spake,
And thus I made reply:-"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.
"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.
"Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum
Of things forever speaking,
That nothing of itself will come
But we must still be seeking?
"Then ask not wherefore, here, alone,
Conversing as I may,
I sit upon this old gray stone,
And dream my time away."
"The Tables Turned"
Up! Up! my friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you'll grow double:
Up! up! my friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?
The sun, above the mountain's head,
A freshening luster mellow
Through all the long, green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.
Books! 't is a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music! on my life,
There's more of wisdom in it.
And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.
She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless -Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.
One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
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Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings,
Our meddling intellect
Misshapes the beauteous forms of things -We murder to dissect.
Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.
"The Last of the Flock"
IN distant countries have I been,
And yet I have not often seen
A healthy man, a man full grown,
Weep in the public roads, alone.
But such a one, on English ground,
And in the broad highway, I met;
Along the broad highway he came,
His cheeks with tears were wet:
Sturdy he seemed, though he was sad;
And in his arms a Lamb he had.
He saw me, and he turned aside,
As if he wished himself to hide:
And with his coat did then essay
To wipe those briny tears away.
I followed him, and said, "My friend,
What ails you? wherefore weep you so?"
--"Shame on me, Sir! this lusty Lamb,
He makes my tears to flow.
To-day I fetched him from the rock;
He is the last of all my flock,
"When I was young, a single man,
And after youthful follies ran,
Though little given to care and thought,
Yet, so it was, an ewe I bought;
And other sheep from her I raised,
As healthy sheep as you might see;
And then I married, and was rich
As I could wish to be;
Of sheep I numbered a full score,
And every year increased my store.
"Year after year my stock it grew;
And from this one, this single ewe,
Full fifty comely sheep I raised,
As fine a flock as ever grazed!
Upon the Quantock hills they fed;
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They throve, and we at home did thrive:
--This lusty Lamb of all my store
Is all that is alive;
And now I care not if we die,
And perish all of poverty.
"Six Children, Sir! had I to feed;
Hard labour in a time of need!
My pride was tamed, and in our grief
I of the Parish asked relief.
They said, I was a wealthy man;
My sheep upon the uplands fed,
And it was fit that thence I took
Whereof to buy us bread.
'Do this: how can we give to you,'
They cried, 'what to the poor is due?'
"I sold a sheep, as they had said,
And bought my little children bread,
And they were healthy with their food
For me--it never did me good.
A woeful time it was for me,
To see the end of all my gains,
The pretty flock which I had reared
With all my care and pains,
To see it melt like snow away-For me it was a woeful day.
"Another still! and still another!
A little lamb, and then its mother!
It was a vein that never stopped-Like blood-drops from my heart they dropped.
'Till thirty were not left alive
They dwindled, dwindled, one by one
And I may say, that many a time
I wished they all were gone-Reckless of what might come at last
Were but the bitter struggle past.
"To wicked deeds I was inclined,
And wicked fancies crossed my mind;
And every man I chanced to see,
I thought he knew some ill of me:
No peace, no comfort could I find,
No ease, within doors or without;
And, crazily and wearily
I went my work about;
And oft was moved to flee from home,
And hide my head where wild beasts roam.
"Sir! 'twas a precious flock to me,
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As dear as my own children be;
For daily with my growing store
I loved my children more and more.
Alas! it was an evil time;
God cursed me in my sore distress;
I prayed, yet every day I thought
I loved my children less;
And every week, and every day,
My flock it seemed to melt away.
"They dwindled, Sir, sad sight to see!
From ten to five, from five to three,
A lamb, a wether, and a ewe;-And then at last from three to two;
And, of my fifty, yesterday
I had but only one:
And here it lies upon my arm,
Alas! and I have none;-To-day I fetched it from the rock;
It is the last of all my flock."
"Composed upon Westminster Bridge,
September 3, 1802"
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.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
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!
"The World Is Too Much With Us"
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!
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;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
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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.
"I Wandered Lonely…"
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.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.
"The Solitary Reaper"
BEHOLD her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.
No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
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In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.
Will no one tell me what she sings?-Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?
Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;-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.
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