William Wordsworth (Encarta)

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William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth, considered one of the foremost English romantic poets, composed flowing blank verse on

the spirituality of nature and the wonders of human imagination. In “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from

Recollections of Early Childhood” (1807), Wordsworth considers the Platonic notion that humans forget all their

knowledge at birth and spend the remainder of their lives recollecting, rather than learning. Wordsworth

celebrates the child, who can enjoy an ecstatic communion with nature, and hopes that in adulthood people

can eventually recover this ecstasy by heeding intuition. This excerpt is recited by an actor.

(p) 1992 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved./Culver Pictures

Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850), English poet, one of the most accomplished and

influential of England's romantic poets, whose theories and style created a new tradition in

poetry.

Wordsworth was born on April 7, 1770, in Cockermouth, Cumberland, and educated at Saint

John's College, University of Cambridge. He developed a keen love of nature as a youth, and

during school vacation periods he frequently visited places noted for their scenic beauty. In

the summer of 1790 he took a walking tour through France and Switzerland. After receiving

his degree in 1791 he returned to France, where he became an enthusiastic convert to the

ideals of the French Revolution (1789-1799). His lover Annette Vallon of Orleans bore him a

daughter in December 1792, shortly before his return to England. Disheartened by the

outbreak of hostilities between France and Great Britain in 1793, Wordsworth nevertheless

remained sympathetic to the French cause.

Although Wordsworth had begun to write poetry while still a schoolboy, none of his poems

was published until 1793, when An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches appeared. These

works, although fresh and original in content, reflect the influence of the formal style of 18th-

century English poetry. The poems received little notice, and few copies were sold.

Wordsworth's income from his writings amounted to little, but his financial problems were

alleviated for a time when in 1795 he received a bequest of £900 from a close friend.

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Thereupon he and his sister, Dorothy Wordsworth, went to live in Racedown, Dorsetshire.

The two had always enjoyed a warmly sympathetic relationship, and Wordsworth relied

greatly on Dorothy, his devoted confidante, for encouragement in his literary endeavors. Her

mental breakdown in later years was to cause him great sorrow, as did the death of his brother

John. William had met the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an enthusiastic admirer of his early

poetic efforts, and in 1797 he and Dorothy moved to Alfoxden, Somersetshire, near

Coleridge's home in Nether Stowey. The move marked the beginning of a close and enduring

friendship between the poets. In the ensuing period they collaborated on a book of poems

entitled Lyrical Ballads, first published in 1798.

This work is generally taken to mark the beginning of the romantic movement in English

poetry. Wordsworth wrote almost all the poems in the volume, including the memorable

“Tintern Abbey”; Coleridge contributed the famous “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”

Representing a revolt against the artificial classicism of contemporary English verse, Lyrical

Ballads was greeted with hostility by most leading critics of the day.

In defense of his unconventional theory of poetry, Wordsworth wrote a “Preface” to the

second edition of Ballads, which appeared in 1800 (actual date of publication, 1801). His

premise was that the source of poetic truth is the direct experience of the senses. Poetry, he

asserted, originates from “emotion recollected in tranquillity.” Rejecting the contemporary

emphasis on form and an intellectual approach that drained poetic writing of strong emotion,

he maintained that the scenes and events of everyday life and the speech of ordinary people

were the raw material of which poetry could and should be made. Far from conciliating the

critics, the “Preface” served only to increase their hostility. Wordsworth, however, was not

discouraged, continuing to write poetry that graphically illustrated his principles.

Before the publication of the “Preface,” Wordsworth and his sister had accompanied

Coleridge to Germany in 1798 and 1799. There Wordsworth wrote several of his finest

lyrical verses, the “Lucy” poems, and began The Prelude. This introspective account of his

own development was completed in 1805 and, after substantial revision, published

posthumously in 1850. Many critics rank it as Wordsworth's greatest work.

Returning to England, William and his sister settled in 1799 at Dove Cottage in Grasmere,

Westmorland, the loveliest spot in the English Lake District. The poet Robert Southey as well

as Coleridge lived nearby, and the three men became known as the Lake Poets. In 1802

Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinson, a childhood friend, who is portrayed in the charming

lyric “She Was a Phantom of Delight.” In 1807Poems in Two Volumes was published. The

work contains much of Wordsworth's finest verse, notably the superb “Ode: Intimations of

Immortality,” the autobiographical narrative “Resolution and Independence,” and many of his

well-known sonnets.

In 1813 Wordsworth obtained a sinecure as distributor of stamps for Westmorland at a salary

of £400 a year. In the same year he and his family and sister moved to Rydal Mount, a few

kilometers from Dove Cottage, and there the poet spent the remainder of his life, except for

periodic travels.

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Wordsworth's political and intellectual sympathies underwent a transformation after 1800. By

1810 his viewpoint was staunchly conservative. He was disillusioned by the course of events

in France culminating in the rise of Napoleon; his circle of friends, including the Scottish

author Sir Walter Scott, also influenced him in the direction of orthodoxy.

As he advanced in age, Wordsworth's poetic vision and inspiration dulled; his later, more

rhetorical, moralistic poems cannot be compared to the lyrics of his youth, although a number

of them are illumined by the spark of his former greatness. Between 1814 and 1822 his

publications included The Excursion (1814), a continuation of The Prelude but lacking the

power and beauty of that work; The White Doe of Rylstone (1815); Peter Bell (1819); and

Ecclesiastical Sonnets (1822). Yarrow Revisited and Other Poems appeared in 1835, but after

that Wordsworth wrote little more. Among his other poetic works are The Borderers: A

Tragedy (1796; published 1842), Michael (1800), The Recluse (1800; published 1888),

Laodamia (1815), and Memorials of a Tour on the Continent (1822). Wordsworth also wrote

the prose works Convention of Cintra (1809) and A Description of the Scenery of the Lakes in

the North of England (1810; reprinted with additions, 1822).

Much of Wordsworth's easy flow of conversational blank verse has true lyrical power and

grace, and his finest work is permeated by a sense of the human relationship to external

nature that is religious in its scope and intensity. To Wordsworth, God was everywhere

manifest in the harmony of nature, and he felt deeply the kinship between nature and the soul

of humankind.

The tide of critical opinion turned in his favor after 1820, and Wordsworth lived to see his

work universally praised. In 1842 he was awarded a government pension, and in the

following year he succeeded Southey as poet laureate. Wordsworth died at Rydal Mount,

April 23, 1850, and was buried in the Grasmere churchyard.

Contributed By:

Michael G. Sundell

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Bewell, Alan J. Wordsworth and the Enlightenment: Nature, Man, and Society in the

Experimental Poetry. Yale University Press, 1989. Study of the major poems.

Chandler, James K. Wordsworth's Second Nature: A Study of Poetry and Politics. University

of Chicago Press, 1984.

Gill, Stephen C. William Wordsworth: A Life. Oxford University Press, 1989.

Hamilton, Paul. Wordsworth: A Critical Introduction. Humanities, 1986.

Johnston, Kenneth R. The Hidden Wordsworth: Poet, Lover, Rebel, Spy. Norton, 1998.

Exhaustive biographical study of the poet reveals secrets that Wordsworth left out of his

autobiographical poem The Prelude.

McFarland, Thomas. William Wordsworth: Intensity and Achievement. Oxford University

Press, 1992. Challenges recent scholarship on Wordsworth and offers alternative

interpretations.

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From The Prelude In The Prelude, or, Growth of a Poet’s Mind (1850), English poet William Wordsworth explored his

childhood and his development as a poet. The posthumously published work asserts the

importance of the individual poet’s imagination in creating poetry and art. Wordsworth began the

poem in 1799, completed a major revision in 1805, and continued revising and adding material to

a final version that was published by his wife after his death in 1850. The following lines, from the

first book of the 1850 version, are examples of the idyllic recollections of Wordsworth’s childhood

that appear throughout the poem.

From The Prelude

By William Wordsworth

Oh, many a time have I, a five years' child,

In a small mill-race severed from his stream,

Made one long bathing of a summer's day;

Basked in the sun, and plunged and basked again

Alternate, all a summer's day, or scoured

The sandy fields, leaping through flowery groves

Of yellow ragwort; or when rock and hill,

The woods, and distant Skiddaw's lofty height,

Were bronzed with deepest radiance, stood alone

Beneath the sky, as if I had been born

On Indian plains, and from my mother's hut

Had run abroad in wantonness, to sport

A naked savage, in the thunder shower.

Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up

Fostered alike by beauty and by fear:

Much favoured in my birth-place, and no less

In that beloved Vale to which erelong

We were transplanted—there were we let loose

For sports of wider range. Ere I had told

Ten birth-days, when among the mountain slopes

Frost, and the breath of frosty wind, had snapped

The last autumnal crocus, 'twas my joy

With store of springes o'er my shoulder hung

To range the open heights where woodcocks ran

Along the smooth green turf. Through half the night,

Scudding away from snare to snare, I plied

That anxious visitation;—moon and stars

Were shining o'er my head. I was alone,

And seemed to be a trouble to the peace

That dwelt among them. Sometimes it befel

In these night wanderings, that a strong desire

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O'erpowered my better reason, and the bird

Which was the captive of another's toil

Became my prey; and when the deed was done

I heard among the solitary hills

Low breathings coming after me, and sounds

Of undistinguishable motion, steps

Almost as silent as the turf they trod.

Nor less when spring had warmed the cultured Vale,

Roved we as plunderers where the mother-bird

Had in high places built her lodge; though mean

Our object and inglorious, yet the end

Was not ignoble. Oh! when I have hung

Above the raven's nest, by knots of grass

And half-inch fissures in the slippery rock

But ill-sustained, and almost (so it seemed)

Suspended by the blast that blew amain,

Shouldering the naked crag, oh, at that time

While on the perilous ridge I hung alone,

With what strange utterance did the loud dry wind

Blow through my ear! the sky seemed not a sky

Of earth—and with what motion moved the clouds!

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. How strange that all

The terrors, pains, and early miseries,

Regrets, vexations, lassitudes interfused

Within my mind, should e'er have borne a part,

And that a needful part, in making up

The calm existence that is mine when I

Am worthy of myself! Praise to the end!

Thanks to the means which Nature deigned to employ;

Whether her fearless visitings, or those

That came with soft alarm, like hurtless light

Opening the peaceful clouds; or she may use

Severer interventions, ministry

More palpable, as best might suit her aim.

One summer evening (led by her) I found

A little boat tied to a willow tree

Within a rocky cove, its usual home.

Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping in

Pushed from the shore. It was an act of stealth

And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice

Of mountain-echoes did my boat move on;

Leaving behind her still, on either side,

Small circles glittering idly in the moon,

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Until they melted all into one track

Of sparkling light. But now, like one who rows,

Proud of his skill, to reach a chosen point

With an unswerving line, I fixed my view

Upon the summit of a craggy ridge,

The horizon's utmost boundary; for above

Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky.

She was an elfin pinnace; lustily

I dipped my oars into the silent lake,

And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat

Went heaving through the water like a swan;

When, from behind that craggy steep till then

The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge,

As if with voluntary power instinct

Upreared its head. I struck and struck again,

And growing still in stature 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. With trembling oars I turned,

And through the silent water stole my way

Back to the covert of the willow tree;

There in her mooring-place I left my bark,—

And through the meadows homeward went, in grave

And serious mood; but after I had seen

That spectacle, for many days, my brain

Worked with a dim and undetermined sense

Of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts

There hung a darkness, call it solitude

Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes

Remained, no pleasant images of trees,

Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields;

But 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.

Wisdom and Spirit of the universe!

Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought,

That givest to forms and images a breath

And everlasting motion, not in vain

By day or star-light thus from my first dawn

Of childhood didst thou intwine for me

The passions that build up our human soul;

Not with the mean and vulgar works of man,

But with high objects, with enduring things—

With life and nature, purifying thus

The elements of feeling and of thought,

And sanctifying, by such discipline,

Both pain and fear, until we recognise

A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.

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Source: Wordsworth,William. The Prelude: 1799, 1805, 1850. Wordsworth, Jonathan and M.

H. Abrams and Stephen Gill, eds. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1979. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Carlyle: On Meeting Wordsworth

One of the most influential social critics of the Victorian age, Thomas Carlyle wrote with a

distinctive, energetic voice. The style that fuelled his political and historical writings is perhaps best

exemplified in his portraits of his contemporaries. The following account of the poet William

Wordsworth embodies Carlyle’s character in its vitality.

From On Meeting Wordsworth

By Thomas Carlyle

William Wordsworth in His Seventies

On a summer morning (let us call it 1840 then) I was apprised by Taylor that Wordsworth

had come to town, and would meet a small party of us at a certain tavern in St. James’s

Street, at breakfast, to which I was invited for the given day and hour. We had a pretty little

room, quiet though looking streetward (tavern’s name is quite lost to me); the morning sun

was pleasantly tinting the opposite houses, a balmy, calm and sunlight morning. Wordsworth,

I think arrived just along with me; we had still five minutes of sauntering and miscellaneous

talking before the whole were assembled. I do not positively remember any of them, except

that James Spedding was there, and that the others, not above five or six in whole, were polite

intelligent quiet persons, and, except Taylor and Wordsworth, not of any special distinction in

the world. Breakfast was pleasant, fairly beyond the common of such things. Wordsworth

seemed in good tone, and, much to Taylor’s satisfaction, talked a great deal; about “poetic”

correspondents of his own (i.e. correspondents for the sake of his poetry; especially one such

who had sent him, from Canton, an excellent chest of tea; correspondent grinningly

applauded by us all); then about ruralties and miscellanies… These were the first topics. Then

finally about literature, literary laws, practices, observances, at considerable length, and

turning wholly on the mechanical part, including even a good deal of shallow enough

etymology, from me and others, which was well received. On all this Wordsworth enlarged

with evident satisfaction, and was joyfully reverent of the “wells of English undefiled”;

though stone dumb as to the deeper rules and wells of Eternal Truth and Harmony, which you

were to try and set forth by said undefiled wells of English or what other speech you had! To

me a little disappointing, but not much; though it would have given me pleasure had the

robust veteran man emerged a little out of vocables into things, now and then, as he never

once chanced to do. For the rest, he talked well in his way; with veracity, easy brevity and

force, as a wise tradesman would of his tools and workshop—and as no unwise one could.

His voice was good, frank and sonorous, though practically clear distinct and forcible rather

than melodious; the tone of him businesslike, sedately confident; no discourtesy, yet no

anxiety about being courteous. A fine wholesome rusticity, fresh as his mountain breezes, sat

well on the stalwart veteran, and on all he said and did. You would have said he was a usually

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taciturn man; glad to unlock himself to audience sympathetic and intelligent, when such

offered itself. His face bore marks of much, not always peaceful, meditation; the look of it

not bland or benevolent so much as close impregnable and hard: a man multa tacere loquive

paratus, in a world where he had experienced no lack of contradictions as he strode along!

The eyes were not very brilliant, but they had a quiet clearness; there was enough of brow

and well shaped; rather too much of cheek (“horse face” I have heard satirists say); face of

squarish shape and decidedly longish, as I think the head itself was (its “length” going

horizontal); he was large-boned, lean, but still firm-knit tall and strong-looking when he

stood, a right good old steel-grey figure, with rustic simplicity and dignity about him, and a

vivacious strength looking through him which might have suited one of those old steel-grey

markgrafs whom Henry the Fowler set up to ward the “marches” and do battle with the

intrusive heathen in a stalwart and judicious manner.

On this and other occasional visits of his, I saw Wordsworth a number of times, at dinner, in

evening parties; and we grew a little more familiar, but without much increase of real

intimacy or affection springing up between us. He was willing to talk with me in a corner, in

noisy extensive circles, having weak eyes, and little loving the general babble current in such

places. One evening, probably about this time, I got him upon the subject of great poets, who

I thought might be admirable equally to us both; but was rather mistaken, as I gradually

found. Pope’s partial failure I was prepared for; less for the narrowish limits visible in Milton

and others. I tried him with Burns, of whom he had sung tender recognition; but Burns also

turned out to be a limited inferior creature, any genius he had a theme for one’s pathos rather;

even Shakespeare himself had his blind sides, his limitations; gradually it became apparent to

me that of transcendent unlimited there was, to this critic, probably but one specimen known,

Wordsworth himself! He by no means said so, or hinted so, in words; but on the whole it was

all I gathered from him in this considerable tête-à-tête of ours; and it was not an agreeable

conquest. New notion as to poetry or poet I had not in the smallest degree got; but my insight

into the depths of Wordsworth’s pride in himself had considerably augmented; and it did not

increase my love of him; though I did not in the least hate it either, so quiet was it, so fixed,

unappealing, like a dim old lichened crag on the wayside, the private meaning of which, in

contrast with any public meaning it had, you recognised with a kind of not wholly

melancholy grin.

…During the last seven or ten years of his life, Wordsworth felt himself to be a recognised

lion, in certain considerable London circles, and was in the habit of coming up to town with

his wife for a month or two every season, to enjoy his quiet triumph and collect his bits of

tribute tales quales… Wordsworth took his bit of lionism very quietly, with a smile sardonic

rather than triumphant, and certainly got no harm by it, if he got or expected little good. His

wife, a small, withered, puckered, winking lady, who never spoke, seemed to be more in

earnest about the affair, and was visibly and sometimes ridiculously assiduous to secure her

proper place of precedence at table… The light was always afflictive to his eyes; he carried in

his pocket something like a skeleton brass candlestick, in which, setting it on the dinner-table,

between him and the most afflictive or nearest of the chief lights, he touched a little spring,

and there flirted out, at the top of his brass implement, a small vertical green circle which

prettily enough threw his eyes into shade, and screened him from that sorrow. In proof of his

equanimity as lion I remember, in connection with this green shade, one little glimpse…

Dinner was large, luminous, sumptuous; I sat a long way from Wordsworth; dessert I think

had come in, and certainly there reigned in all quarters a cackle as of Babel (only politer

perhaps), which far up in Wordsworth’s quarter (who was leftward on my side of the table)

seemed to have taken a sententious, rather louder, logical and quasi-scientific turn, heartily

unimportant to gods and men, so far as I could judge of it and of the other babble reigning. I

looked upwards, leftwards, the coast being luckily for a moment clear; there, far off,

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beautifully screened in the shadow of his vertical green circle, which was on the farther side

of him, sate Wordsworth, silent, slowly but steadily gnawing some portion of what I judged

to be raisins, with his eye and attention placidly fixed on these and these alone. The sight of

whom, and of his rock-like indifference to the babble, quasi-scientific and other, with

attention turned on the small practical alone, was comfortable and amusing to me, who felt

like him but could not eat raisins. This little glimpse I could still paint, so clear and bright is

it, and this shall be symbolical of all.

In a few years, I forget in how many and when, these Wordsworth appearances in London

ceased; we heard, not of ill-health perhaps, but of increasing love of rest; at length of the long

sleep’s coming; and never saw Wordsworth more. One felt his death as the extinction of a

public light, but not otherwise.

Source: Carlyle, Thomas. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 6th ed., vol. 2. New

York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1993.

Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Quotations by/about William Wordsworth:

Hence in a season of calm weather

Though inland far we be,

Our souls have sight of that immortal sea

Which brought us hither.

William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850)

British poet.

Poems in Two Volumes (vol. 2), "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of

Early Childhood" Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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INFANCY, n. The period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth, 'Heaven lies about us.'

The world begins lying about us pretty soon afterwards.

Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914?)

U.S. writer and journalist.

The Devil's Dictionary Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Sweet childish days, that were as long

As twenty days are now.


British poet.Also known as "I've Watched You Now a Full Half Hour" to distinguish it from

"To a Butterfly": "Stay near me—do not take thy flight," composed in March 1802 and also

included in Poems in Two Volumes.

Poems in Two Volumes , "To a Butterfly" Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide;

The form remains, the function never dies.


British poet.

The River Duddon: A Series of Sonnets, "After-Thought" Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Plain living and high thinking are no more.


British poet. Also known as "Oh Friend! I Know Not."

Poems in Two Volumes, "Written in London, September 1802" Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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We must be free or die, who speak the tongue

That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold

Which Milton held.


British poet.

Poems in Two Volumes, "It Is Not To Be Thought Of" Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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There is

One great society alone on earth:

The noble living and the noble dead.


British poet.

The Prelude, "France (Concluded)" Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Our meddling intellect

Misshapes the beauteous forms of things:

We murder to dissect.


British poet. Subtitled "An Evening Piece on the Same Subject," referring to "Expostulation

and Reply," to which it is a companion piece.

Lyrical Ballads, "The Tables Turned" Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Mr Wordsworth is never interrupted.

Attributed to Mary Wordsworth (1770 - 1850)

British wife of William Wordsworth. Rebuking John Keats for interrupting a long

monologue. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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She lived unknown, and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and oh

The difference to me!


British poet. One of the "Lucy poems." The identity of Lucy, the subject of the poems, is a

matter of speculation.

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Lyrical Ballads (2nd ed.), "She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways" Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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'Tis said that some have died for love.


British poet.

Lyrical Ballads (2nd ed.), "'Tis Said That Some Have Died" Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Why art thou silent! Is thy love a plant

Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air

Of absence withers what was once so fair?


British poet.

Yarrow Revisited and Other Poems, "Why Art Thou Silent!" Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Come forth into the light of things,

Let Nature be your Teacher.





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One impulse from a vernal wood

May teach you more of man,

Of moral evil and of good,

Than all the sages can.





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That which sets

...The budding rose above the rose full blown.


British poet.

Referring to the French Revolution.

The Prelude, "France (Concluded)" Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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It may be safely affirmed, that there neither is, nor can be, any essential difference between

the language of prose and metrical composition.


British poet.

Lyrical Ballads (2nd ed.) Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion

recollected in tranquillity.


British poet.


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Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion

recollected in tranquillity.


British poet.


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Wordsworth went to the Lakes, but he never was a lake poet. He found in stones the sermons

he had already put there.

Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)

Irish poet, playwright, and wit.

Referring to William Wordsworth.

Intentions, "The Decay of Lying" Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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The good old rule

Sufficeth them, the simple plan,

That they should take, who have the power,

And they should keep who can.


British poet.

Poems in Two Volumes (vol. 2), "Rob Roy's Grave" Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Small service is true service, while it lasts.


British poet.

"To a Child. Written in Her Album" Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Small service is true service, while it lasts.


British poet.

"To a Child. Written in Her Album" Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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A drowsy frowzy poem, call'd the 'Excursion,'

Writ in a manner which is my aversion.

Lord Byron (1788 - 1824)

British poet.On Wordsworth's poem, The Excursion (1814).

Don Juan Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth.

Philip Larkin (1922 - 1985)

British poet.

Required Writing Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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For the sake of a few fine imaginative or domestic passages, are we to be bullied into a

certain Philosophy engendered in the whims of an Egotist.

John Keats (1795 - 1821)

English poet.

Criticizing poetry such as Wordsworth's "that has a palpable design on us."

Letter to John Hamilton Reynolds Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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He spoke, and loos'd our heart in tears.

He laid us as we lay at birth

On the cool flowery lap of earth.

Matthew Arnold (1822 - 1888)

British poet and critic.


"Memorial Verses" Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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In honoured poverty thy voice did weave

Songs consecrate to truth and liberty,

Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve,

Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822)

English poet.Referring to William Wordsworth.

"To Wordsworth" Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Mr. Wordsworth, a stupid man, with a decided gift for portraying nature in vignettes, never

yet ruined anyone's morals, unless, perhaps, he has driven some susceptible persons to crime

in a very fury of boredom.

Ezra Pound (1885 - 1972)

U.S. poet, translator, and critic.

Future Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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The great Metaquizzical poet.

Lord Byron (1788 - 1824)

British poet.


Letter to John Murray Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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The most original poet now living, and the one whose writings could the least be spared; for

they have no substitutes elsewhere.

William Hazlitt (1778 - 1830)

British essayist and critic.

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The Spirit of the Age, "Mr. Wordsworth" Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Two voices are there: one is of the deep...

And one is of an old half-witted sheep...

And, Wordsworth, both are thine.

James Kenneth Stephen (1859 - 1892)

British writer.

Lapsus Calami, "A Sonnet" Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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We learn from Horace, 'Homer sometimes sleeps';

We feel without him, Wordsworth sometimes wakes.

Lord Byron (1788 - 1824)

British poet.

Don Juan Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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And yet the wiser mind

Mourns less for what age takes away

Than what it leaves behind.


British poet.

Subtitled "A Conversation."

Lyrical Ballads (2nd ed.), "The Fountain" Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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William Wordsworth (Encarta)

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