Read The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Online
Authors: Elizabeth Knowles
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (469 page)
1770–1850
Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he
Whom every man in arms should wish to be?
"Character of the Happy Warrior" (1807).
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.
"Composed upon Westminster Bridge" (1807)
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
"Composed upon Westminster Bridge" (1807)
The light that never was, on sea or land,
The consecration, and the Poet's dream.
on a picture of Peele Castle in a storm
"Elegiac Stanzas" (1807)
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!
"The French Revolution, as it Appeared to Enthusiasts" (1809); also
The Prelude
(1850) bk. 9, l. 108
The moving accident is not my trade;
To freeze the blood I have no ready arts.
"Hart-Leap Well" (1800) pt. 2, l. 1
All shod with steel
We hissed along the polished ice.
"Influence of Natural Objects" (1809); also
The Prelude
(1850) bk. 1, l. 414
It is a beauteous evening, calm and free.
"It is a beauteous evening, calm and free" (1807)
We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake.
"It is not to be thought of that the Flood" (1807)
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.
"I wandered lonely as a cloud" (1815 ed.).
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.
"I wandered lonely as a cloud" (1815 ed.)
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue.
"Lines composed…above Tintern Abbey" (1798) l. 91
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters.
"Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour" (1807)
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
"My heart leaps up when I behold" (1807)
The Child is father of the Man.
"My heart leaps up when I behold" (1807)
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.
"Ode. Intimations of Immortality" (1807) st. 1
The rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the rose.
"Ode. Intimations of Immortality" (1807) st. 2
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?
"Ode. Intimations of Immortality" (1807) st. 4
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.
"Ode. Intimations of Immortality" (1807) st. 5
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.
"Ode. Intimations of Immortality" (1807) st. 5
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.
"Ode. Intimations of Immortality" (1807) st. 9
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower.
"Ode. Intimations of Immortality" (1807) st. 10
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
"Ode. Intimations of Immortality" (1807) st. 11
Stern daughter of the voice of God!
"Ode to Duty" (1807)
Plain living and high thinking are no more:
The homely beauty of the good old cause
Is gone.
"O friend! I know not which way I must look" (1807).
Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee,
And was the safeguard of the West.
"On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic" (1807)
Some sipping punch, some sipping tea,
But as you by their faces see
All silent, and all damned?
Peter Bell
pt. 1, l. 543 in 1819 MS (subsequently deleted so as "not to offend the pious")
A reasoning, self-sufficing thing,
An intellectual All-in-all!
"A Poet's Epitaph" (1800)
In common things that round us lie
Some random truths he can impart,—
The harvest of a quiet eye
That broods and sleeps on his own heart.
"A Poet's Epitaph" (1800)
Unprofitably travelling toward the grave.
The Prelude
(1850) bk. 1, l. 267
Made one long bathing of a summer's day.
The Prelude
(1850) bk. 1, l. 290
All things have second birth;
The earthquake is not satisfied at once.
The Prelude
(1850) bk. 10, l. 83
There is
One great society alone on earth,
The noble Living, and the noble Dead.
The Prelude
(1850) bk. 11, l. 393
I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy,
The sleepless soul that perished in its pride.
"Resolution and Independence" (1807) st. 7
We poets in our youth begin in gladness;
But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness.
"Resolution and Independence" (1807) st. 7
Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide;
The Form remains, the Function never dies.
"The River Duddon" (1820) no. 34 "After-Thought"
We feel that we are greater than we know.
"The River Duddon" (1820) no. 34 "After-Thought"
Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart.
"Scorn not the Sonnet" (1827).
She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love.
"She dwelt among the untrodden ways" (1800)
A violet by a mossy stone.
"She dwelt among the untrodden ways" (1800)
She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!
"She dwelt among the untrodden ways" (1800)
She was a phantom of delight.
title of poem (1807)
A perfect woman; nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command.
"She was a phantom of delight" (1807)
A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.
"A slumber did my spirit seal" (1800)
Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland lass!
"The Solitary Reaper" (1807)
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago.
"The Solitary Reaper" (1807)
What, you are stepping westward?
"Stepping Westward" (1807)
Surprised by joy—impatient as the wind.
"Surprised by joy—impatient as the wind" (1815)
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:—
We murder to dissect.
"The Tables Turned" (1798)
Two Voices are there; one is of the sea,
One of the mountains; each a mighty Voice:
In both from age to age thou didst rejoice,
They were thy chosen music, Liberty!
"Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland" (1807)
O Cuckoo! Shall I call thee bird,
Or but a wandering voice?
"To the Cuckoo" (1807)
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and man's unconquerable mind.
"To Toussaint L'Ouverture" (1807)
We are seven.
title of poem (1798)
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.
"The world is too much with us" (1807)
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 wreathèd horn.
"The world is too much with us" (1807)
Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.
Lyrical Ballads
(2nd ed., 1802) preface.
Never forget what I believe was observed to you by Coleridge, that 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.
letter to Lady Beaumont, 21 May 1807
