Selected Poetry of William Wordsworth

by Wordsworth, William; Van Doren, Mark; Bromwich, David

• ISBN13: 9780375759413
• ISBN10: 0375759417
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-02-12
• Publisher: Modern Library

Summary

Selected Poetry of William Wordsworthrepresents Wordsworth's prolific output, from the poems first published inLyrical Balladsin 1798 that changed the face of English poetry to the late "Yarrow Revisited." Wordsworth's poetry is celebrated for its deep feeling, its use of ordinary speech, the love of nature it expresses, and its representation of commonplace things and events. As Matthew Arnold notes, "[Wordsworth's poetry] is great because of the extraordinary power with which [he] feels the joy offered to us in nature, the joy offered to us in the simple elementary affections and duties."

Author Biography

<b>Mark Van Doren</b> (1894–1973) was an American Pulitzer Prize–winning poet and critic who taught English at Columbia University for nearly thirty years.<br><br><b>David Bromwich</b> is a professor of English at Yale Univer-sity and the author of numerous books, including <i>Disowned by Memory: Wordsworth’s Poetry of the 1790s.</i>

Table of Contents

Biographical Note	v
Introduction	xv
David Bromwich
1787--89
An Evening Walk. Addressed to a Young Lady	3	(10)
1791--92
Descriptive Sketches. Taken during a Pedestrian Tour among the Alps	13	(18)
1791--94
Guilt and Sorrow; or, Incidents upon Salisbury Plain	31	(20)
1797
Lines Left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree, Which Stands Near the Lake of Esthwaite, on a Desolate Part of the Shore, Commanding a Beautiful Prospect	51	(2)
The Reverie of Poor Susan	53	(1)
1798--1800
A Night-Piece	54	(1)
We Are Seven	54	(3)
Anecdote for Fathers	57	(1)
The Thorn	58	(8)
Goody Blake and Harry Gill. A True Story	66	(3)
Her Eyes Are Wild	69	(4)
Simon Lee, the Old Huntsman; with an Incident in Which He Was Concerned	73	(2)
Lines Written in Early Spring	75	(1)
To My Sister	76	(1)
``A Whirl-Blast from Behind the Hill''	77	(1)
Expostulation and Reply	78	(1)
The Tables Turned. An Evening Scene on the Same Subject	79	(1)
The Complaint of a Forsaken Indian Woman	80	(2)
The Last of the Flock	82	(3)
The Idiot Boy	85	(14)
Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798	99	(4)
The Old Cumberland Beggar	103	(5)
Animal Tranquillity and Decay	108	(1)
Peter Bell. A Tale	109	(33)
The Simplon Pass	142	(1)
Influence of Natural Objects in Calling Forth and Strengthening the Imagination in Boyhood and Early Youth	142	(2)
There Was a Boy	144	(1)
Nutting	145	(2)
``Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known''	147	(1)
``She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways''	147	(1)
``I Travelled Among Unknown Men''	148	(1)
``Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower''	148	(2)
``A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal''	150	(1)
A Poet's Epitaph	150	(2)
Matthew	152	(1)
The Two April Mornings	153	(2)
The Fountain. A Conversation	155	(2)
Lucy Gray; or, Solitude	157	(2)
Ruth	159	(7)
``Bleak Season Was It, Turbulent and Wild''	166	(1)
``On Nature's Invitation Do I Come''	167	(1)
The Prelude; or, Growth of a Poet's, Mind. An Autobiographical Poem	168	(212)
The Recluse	380	(22)
The Brothers	402	(12)
Michael. A Pastoral Poem	414	(13)
The Pet-Lamb. A Pastoral	427	(2)
The Waterfall and the Eglantine	429	(2)
The Oak and the Broom. A Pastoral	431	(4)
Hart-leap Well	435	(5)
The Childless Father	440	(1)
1802-1807
The Sparrow's Nest	441	(1)
The Sailor's Mother	441	(2)
Alice Fell; or, Poverty	443	(1)
To a Butterfly	444	(1)
``My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold''	445	(1)
``Among All Lovely Things My Love Had Been''	445	(1)
Written in March, While Resting on the Bridge at the Foot of Brother's Water	446	(1)
To a Butterfly	447	(1)
To the Small Celandine	447	(2)
Resolution and Independence	449	(5)
``I Grieved for Buonaparte''	454	(1)
A Farewell	454	(2)
Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1802	456	(1)
Composed by the Sea-side, near Calais, August, 1802	456	(1)
Calais, August, 1802	457	(1)
``It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free''	457	(1)
On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic	458	(1)
To Toussaint L'Ouverture	458	(1)
Composed in the Valley near Dover, on the Day of Landing	459	(1)
Near Dover, September, 1802	459	(1)
In London, September, 1802	460	(1)
London, 1802	460	(1)
``England! The Time Is Come When Thou Should'st Wean''	460	(1)
``Great Men Have Been Among Us''	461	(1)
``It Is Not to Be Thought of That the Flood''	461	(1)
``When I Have Borne in Memory''	462	(1)
Stanzas Written in My Pocket-Copy of Thomson's ``Castle of Indolence''	462	(2)
To H. C. Six Years Old	464	(1)
The Green Linnet	465	(1)
Yew-trees	466	(1)
Stepping Westward	467	(1)
The Solitary Reaper	468	(1)
Yarrow Unvisited	469	(2)
October, 1803	471	(1)
To the Men of Kent. October, 1803	472	(1)
In the Pass of Killicranky, an Invasion Being Expected, October, 1803	472	(1)
Lines on the Expected Invasion, 1803	473	(1)
To the Cuckoo	473	(1)
``She Was a Phantom of Delight''	474	(1)
``I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud''	475	(1)
The Affliction of Margaret	476	(2)
The Small Celandine	478	(1)
Ode to Duty	479	(2)
``When to the Attractions of the Busy World''	481	(3)
Elegiac Stanzas, Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle, in a Storm, Painted	484	(2)
Sir George Beaumont
To a Young Lady, Who Had Been Reproached for Taking Long Walks in the Country	486	(1)
The Waggoner	486	(23)
French Revolution, As It Appeared to Enthusiasts at Its Commencement. Reprinted from the Friend	509	(1)
Character of the Happy Warrior	510	(2)
Star-Gazers	512	(1)
``Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent's Narrow Room''	513	(1)
Personal Talk	514	(1)
``The World Is Too Much with Us; Late and Soon''	515	(1)
``With Ships the Sea Was Sprinkled Far and Nigh''	516	(1)
``Where Lies the Land to Which Yon Ship Must Go?''	516	(1)
To Sleep	517	(1)
To Sleep	517	(1)
To Sleep	518	(1)
To the Memory of Raisley Calvert	518	(1)
``Methought I Saw the Footsteps of a Throne''	519	(1)
November, 1806	519	(1)
Ode. Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood	520	(6)
Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland	526	(1)
``Though Narrow Be That Old Man's Cares''	526	(1)
Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle, upon the Restoration of Lord Clifford, the Shepherd, to the Estates and Honours of His Ancestors	527	(4)
The White Doe of Rylstone; or, the Fate of the Nortons	531	(50)
1814
The Excursion, Book I	581	(27)
Laodamia	608	(5)
Yarrow Visited, September, 1814	613	(3)
1815
``Surprised by Joy---Impatient as the Wind''	616	(1)
1817--1833
Ode to Lycoris. May, 1817	616	(2)
Composed upon an Evening of Extraordinary Splendour and Beauty	618	(2)
The River Duddon. A Series of Sonnets	620	(15)
Ecclesiastical Sonnets. In Series. (A Selection.)	635	(1)
Part I. From the Introduction of Christianity into Britain, to the Consummation of the Papal Dominion	635	(3)
Introduction	635	(1)
Trepidation of the Druids	635	(1)
Druidical Excommunication	636	(1)
Uncertainty	636	(1)
Seclusion	637	(1)
Continued	637	(1)
Canute	638	(1)
Part II. To the Close of the Troubles in the Reign of Charles I	638	(1)
Dissolution of the Monasteries	638	(1)
Saints	639	(1)
Part III. From the Restoration to the Present Times	639	(10)
``I saw the figure of a lovely Maid''	639	(1)
Patriotic Sympathies	640	(1)
Mutability	640	(1)
Congratulation	640	(1)
Conclusion	641	(1)
``Scorn Not the Sonnet''	641	(1)
Yarrow Revisited	642	(3)
``If Thou Indeed Derive Thy Light from Heaven''	645	(1)
``If This Great World of Joy and Pain''	646	(1)
``Most Sweet It Is with Unuplifted Eyes''	646	(1)
To a Child. Written in Her Album	647	(2)
Preface to the Second Edition of ``Lyrical Ballads,'' 1800	649	(22)
Appendix, 1802	671	(6)
Notes	677	(74)
Index of Titles	751	(5)
Index of First Lines	756

Excerpts

1787—89
An Evening Walk addressed to a young lady General Sketch of the Lakes — Author’s regret of his youth which was passed amongst them —Short description of Noon — Cascade — Noontide Retreat — Precipice and sloping Lights — Face of Nature as the Sun declines — Mountain-farm, and the Cock — Slate-quarry — Sunset — Superstition of the Country connected with that moment — Swans — Female Beggar — Twilight-sounds — Western Lights — Spirits — Night — Moonlight — Hope — Night-sounds — Conclusion.

Far from my dearest Friend, ’tis mine to rove
Through bare grey dell, high wood, and pastoral cove;
Where Derwent rests, and listens to the roar
That stuns the tremulous cliffs of high Lodore;
Where peace to Grasmere’s lonely island leads,
To willowy hedge-rows, and to emerald meads;
Leads to her bridge, rude church, and cottaged grounds,
Her rocky sheepwalks, and her woodland bounds;
Where, undisturbed by winds, Winander sleeps
’Mid clustering isles, and holly-sprinkled steeps;
Where twilight glens endear my Esthwaite’s shore,
And memory of departed pleasures, more.  

Fair scenes, erewhile, I taught, a happy child,
The echoes of your rocks my carols wild:
The spirit sought not then, in cherished sadness,
A cloudy substitute for failing gladness.
In youth’s keen eye the livelong day was bright,
The sun at morning, and the stars at night,
Alike, when first the bittern’s hollow bill
Was heard, or woodcocks roamed the moonlight hill.
In thoughtless gaiety I coursed the plain,
And hope itself was all I knew of pain;
For then, the inexperienced heart would beat
At times, while young Content forsook her seat,
And wild Impatience, pointing upward, showed,
Through passes yet unreached, a brighter road,
Alas! the idle tale of man is found
Depicted in the dial’s moral round;
Hope with reflection blends her social rays
To gild the total tablet of his days;
Yet still, the sport of some malignant power,
He knows but from its shade the present hour.
But why, ungrateful, dwell on idle pain?
To show what pleasures yet to me remain,
Say, will my Friend, with unreluctant ear,
The history of a poet’s evening hear?
When, in the south, the wan noon, brooding still,
Breathed a pale steam around the glaring hill,
And shades of deep-embattled clouds were seen,
Spotting the northern cliffs with lights between;
When crowding cattle, checked by rails that make
A fence far stretched into the shallow lake,
Lashed the cool water with their restless tails,
Or from high points of rock looked out for fanning gales:
When school-boys stretched their length upon the green;
And round the broad-spread oak, a glimmering scene,
In the rough fern-clad park, the herded deer
Shook the still-twinkling tail and glancing ear;
When horses in the sunburnt intake stood,
And vainly eyed below the tempting flood,
Or tracked the passenger, in mute distress,
With forward neck the closing gate to press—
Then, while I wandered where the huddling rill
Brightens with water-breaks the hollow ghyll
As by enchantment, an obscure retreat
Opened at once, and stayed my devious feet.
While thick above the rill the branches close,
In rocky basin its wild waves repose,
Inverted shrubs, and moss of gloomy green,
Cling from the rocks, with pale wood-weeds between;

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Excerpted from Selected Poetry of William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
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