Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (169 page)

Lines

Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour July 13, 1798

William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

FIVE years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur. — Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
  
5
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
  
10
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
‘Mid groves and copses. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
  
15
Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
With some uncertain notice, as might seem
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
  
20
Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fire
The Hermit sits alone.
   
These beauteous forms,Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye:
  
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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,
  
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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
  
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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
  
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Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened: — 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
  
45
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.
  
50
   
If thisBe but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft,
In darkness, and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
  
55
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart,
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,
O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro’ the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!
 
And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
  
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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
  
65
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; when like a roe
I bounded o’er the mountains, by the sides
  
70
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led: more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,
  
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And their glad animal movements all gone by)
To me was all in all. — I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
  
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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. — That time is past,
  
85
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
  
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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
  
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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,
  
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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,
  
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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,
  
110
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.
   
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
  
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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
  
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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
  
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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
  
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Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after years,
  
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When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
  
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If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance —
If I should be where I no more can hear
  
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Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes those 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
  
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Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love, oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
  
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And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

The Daffodils

William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

I WANDER’D 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
  
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Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretch’d in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
  
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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
  
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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,
  
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They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

To the Daisy

William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

WITH little here to do or see
Of things that in the great world be,
Sweet Daisy! oft I talk to thee
  
For thou art worthy,
Thou unassuming commonplace
  
5
Of Nature, with that homely face,
And yet with something of a grace
  
Which love makes for thee!

Oft on the dappled turf at ease
I sit and play with similes,
  
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Loose types of things through all degrees,
  
Thoughts of thy raising;
And many a fond and idle name
I give to thee, for praise or blame
As is the humour of the game,
  
15
  
While I am gazing.

A nun demure, of lowly port;
Or sprightly maiden, of Love’s court,
In thy simplicity the sport
  
Of all temptations;
  
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A queen in crown of rubies drest;
A starveling in a scanty vest;
Are all, as seems to suit thee best,
  
Thy appellations.

A little Cyclops, with one eye
  
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Staring to threaten and defy,
That thought comes next — and instantly
  
The freak is over,
The shape will vanish, and behold!
A silver shield with boss of gold
  
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That spreads itself, some fairy bold
  
In fight to cover.

I see thee glittering from afar —
And then thou art a pretty star,
Not quite so fair as many are
  
35
  
In heaven above thee!
Yet like a star, with glittering crest,
Self-poised in air thou seem’st to rest; —
May peace come never to his nest
  
Who shall reprove thee!
  
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Sweet Flower! for by that name at last
When all my reveries are past,
I call thee, and to that cleave fast,
  
Sweet silent Creature!
That breath’st with me in sun and air,
  
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Do thou, as thou art wont, repair
My heart with gladness, and a share
  
Of thy meek nature!

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

To the Cuckoo

William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

O BLITHE new-comer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice:
O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?

While I am lying on the grass
  
5
Thy twofold shout I hear;
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off and near.

Though babbling only to the vale
Of sunshine and of flowers,
  
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Thou bringest unto me a tale
Of visionary hours.

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!
Even yet thou art to me
No bird, but an invisible thing,
  
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A voice, a mystery;

The same whom in my school-boy days
I listen’d to; that Cry
Which made me look a thousand ways
In bush, and tree, and sky.
  
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To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love;
Still long’d for, never seen!

And I can listen to thee yet;
  
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Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.

O blesséd Bird! the earth we pace
Again appears to be
  
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An unsubstantial, fairy place,
That is fit home for Thee!

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order