William Wordsworth

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.

— William Wordsworth

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea.

— William Wordsworth

Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year; God being with thee when we know it not.

— William Wordsworth

Once did She hold the gorgeous east in fee; Venice, the eldest Child of Liberty.

— William Wordsworth

Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade Of that which once was great, is passed away.

— William Wordsworth

Thou has left behind And love, and man's unconquerable mind.

— William Wordsworth

Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour: Of stagnant waters.

— William Wordsworth

Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart: In cheerful godliness.

— William Wordsworth

We must be free or die, who speak the tongue Which Milton held.

— William Wordsworth

He sang of love, with quiet blending, That was the song,—the song for me!

— William Wordsworth

Two Voices are there; one is of the sea, One of the mountains; each a mighty Voice.

— William Wordsworth

Love had he found in huts where poor men lie; The sleep that is among the lonely hills.

— William Wordsworth

Action is transitory—a step, a blow— We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed.

— William Wordsworth

A few strong instincts and a few plain rules, Then all the pride of intellect and thought?

— William Wordsworth

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.

— William Wordsworth

A cheerful life is what the Muses love, A soaring spirit is their prime delight.

— William Wordsworth

But shapes that come not at an earthly call, Will not depart when mortal voices bid.

— William Wordsworth

Surprised by joy—impatient as the Wind.

— William Wordsworth

And beauty, for confiding youth, The most resplendent hair.

— William Wordsworth

What is pride? A whizzing rocket That would emulate a star.

— William Wordsworth

Enough, if something from our hands have power To live, and act, and serve the future hour.

— William Wordsworth

Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower,We feel that we are greater than we know.

— William Wordsworth

The flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly.

— William Wordsworth

Lines Written In Early Spring

— William Wordsworth

Lives there a man whose sole delights What every natural heart enjoys?

— William Wordsworth

A soul so pitiably forlorn, False fires, that others may be lost.

— William Wordsworth

But hushed be every thought that springs From out the bitterness of things.

— William Wordsworth

True beauty dwells in deep retreats, And the lover is beloved.

— William Wordsworth

Type of the wise who soar, but never roam; True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!

— William Wordsworth

I heard a thousand blended notes

— William Wordsworth

Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned, Shakespeare unlocked his heart

— William Wordsworth

Ocean is a mighty harmonist.

— William Wordsworth

These feeble and fastidious times.

— William Wordsworth

Myriads of daisies have shone forth in flower The tender charm of poetry and love.

— William Wordsworth

Life is divided into three terms - that which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present, to live better in the future.

— William Wordsworth

Small service is true service while it lasts. Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun.

— William Wordsworth

One solace yet remains for us who came Assent is power, belief the soul of fact.

— William Wordsworth

How does the Meadow-flower its bloom unfold? Down to its root, and, in that freedom, bold.

— William Wordsworth

Minds that have nothing to confer Find little to perceive.

— William Wordsworth

Thought and theory must precede all action that moves to salutary purposes. Yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory.

— William Wordsworth

Oh, be wise, Thou! Instructed that true knowledge leads to love.

— William Wordsworth

There's something in a flying horse, Shaped like the crescent-moon.

— William Wordsworth

The common growth of Mother Earth Her humblest mirth and tears.

— William Wordsworth

A primrose by a river's brim And it was nothing more.

— William Wordsworth

The soft blue sky did never melt The witchery of the soft blue sky!

— William Wordsworth

On a fair prospect some have looked, On which they gazed themselves away.

— William Wordsworth

As if the man had fixed his face, Against the wind and open sky!

— William Wordsworth

Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.

— William Wordsworth

Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all Science.

— William Wordsworth

The human mind is capable of excitement without the application of gross and violent stimulants; and he must have a very faint perception of its beauty and dignity who does not know this.

— William Wordsworth

In spite of difference of soil and climate, of language and manners, of laws and customs—in spite of things silently gone out of mind, and things violently destroyed, the Poet binds together by passion and knowledge the vast empire of human society, as it is spread over the whole earth, and over all time.

— William Wordsworth

A multitude of causes unknown to former times are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and unfitting it for all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor.

— William Wordsworth

I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.

— William Wordsworth

All men feel something of an honorable bigotry for the objects which have long continued to please them.

— William Wordsworth

— A simple child, What should it know of death?

— William Wordsworth

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

— William Wordsworth

Have I not reason to lament What man has made of man?

— William Wordsworth

The eye—it cannot choose but see; against or with our will.

— William Wordsworth

Nor less I deem that there are Powers In a wise passiveness.

— William Wordsworth

Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher.

— William Wordsworth

One impulse from a vernal wood Than all the sages can.

— William Wordsworth

O Reader! had you in your mind A tale in everything.

— William Wordsworth

I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds Hath oftener left me mourning.

— William Wordsworth

What fond and wayward thoughts will slide "If Lucy should be dead!"

— William Wordsworth

She dwelt among the untrodden ways And very few to love:

— William Wordsworth

She lived unknown, and few could know The difference to me!

— William Wordsworth

Three years she grew in sun and shower, A Lady of my own."

— William Wordsworth

A slumber did my spirit seal; With rocks, and stones, and trees.

— William Wordsworth

The sweetest thing that ever grew Beside a human door!

— William Wordsworth

And sings a solitary song That whistles in the wind.

— William Wordsworth

A youth to whom was given And such impetuous blood.

— William Wordsworth

My eyes are dim with childish tears, Than what it leaves behind.

— William Wordsworth

Something between a hindrance and a help.

— William Wordsworth

Drink, pretty creature, drink!

— William Wordsworth

May no rude hand deface it, And its forlorn Hic jacet!

— William Wordsworth

O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods, How often has my spirit turned to thee!

— William Wordsworth

And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, I came among these hills;

— William Wordsworth

For nature then What then I was.

— William Wordsworth

The sounding cataract Unborrowed from the eye.

— William Wordsworth

A fingering slave, Upon his mother's grave.

— William Wordsworth

A reasoning, self-sufficing thing, An intellectual All-in-all!

— William Wordsworth

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.

— William Wordsworth

He murmurs near the running brooks A music sweeter than their own.

— William Wordsworth

And you must love him, ere to you He will seem worthy of your love.

— William Wordsworth

The harvest of a quiet eye, That broods and sleeps on his own heart.

— William Wordsworth

Oh there is blessing in this gentle breeze, Free as a bird to settle where I will.

— William Wordsworth

Fair seedtime had my soul, and I grew up Fostered alike by beauty and by fear.

— William Wordsworth

Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows In one society.

— William Wordsworth

The grim shape Strode after me.

— William Wordsworth

The human mind is capable of excitement without the application of gross and violent stimulants; and he must have a very faint perception of its beauty and dignity who does not know this.

— William Wordsworth

For I have learned to look on nature, not as in the hour of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes the still, sad music of humanity.

— William Wordsworth

Sweet is the lore which nature brings;

— William Wordsworth

Books! tis a dull and endless strife:

— William Wordsworth

Huge and mighty forms, that do not live By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.

— William Wordsworth

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

— William Wordsworth

Where the statue stood Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.

— William Wordsworth

But an old age serene and bright, and lovely as a Lapland night, shall lead thee to thy grave.

— William Wordsworth

When from our better selves we have too long How gracious, how benign, is Solitude.

— William Wordsworth

A day Spent in a round of strenuous idleness.

— William Wordsworth

Another morn Risen on mid-noon.

— William Wordsworth

Whether we be young or old, And something evermore about to be.

— William Wordsworth

Nature never did betray

— William Wordsworth

Brothers all Scholars and gentlemen.

— William Wordsworth

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!

— William Wordsworth

The budding rose above the rose full blown.

— William Wordsworth

That best portion of a man's life, his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.

— William Wordsworth

There is The noble Living and the noble Dead.

— William Wordsworth

Sweet Mercy! to the gates of Heaven Effaced forever.

— William Wordsworth

And stepping westward seemed to be A kind of heavenly destiny.

— William Wordsworth

I listened, motionless and still; Long after it was heard no more.

— William Wordsworth

A famous man is Robin Hood, The English ballad-singer's joy.

— William Wordsworth

Yet was Rob Roy as wise as brave; Must scorn a timid song.

— William Wordsworth

Burn all the statutes and their shelves: And worse, against ourselves.

— William Wordsworth

The good old rule And they should keep who can.

— William Wordsworth

The Eagle, he was lord above, And Rob was lord below.

— William Wordsworth

A brotherhood of venerable trees.

— William Wordsworth

From Stirling Castle we had seen And see the braes of Yarrow."

— William Wordsworth

She was a Phantom of delight From May-time and the cheerful dawn.

— William Wordsworth

A Creature not too bright or good Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.

— William Wordsworth

To begin, begin.

— William Wordsworth

And now I see with eye serene The very pulse of the machine.

— William Wordsworth

The reason firm, the temperate will, To warn, to comfort, and command.

— William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

— William Wordsworth

Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way.

— William Wordsworth

Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

— William Wordsworth

A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company.

— William Wordsworth

Life is divided into three terms - that which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present, to live better in the future.

— William Wordsworth

That inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude.

— William Wordsworth

Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!

— William Wordsworth

A light to guide, a rod To check the erring, and reprove.

— William Wordsworth

Me this unchartered freedom tires; I long for a repose that ever is the same.

— William Wordsworth

Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong.

— William Wordsworth

Give unto me, made lowly wise, And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live!

— William Wordsworth

Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he That every man in arms should wish to be?

— William Wordsworth

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

— William Wordsworth

Who, doomed to go in company with Pain, Turns his necessity to glorious gain.

— William Wordsworth

Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves Of their bad influence, and their good receives.

— William Wordsworth

More skillful in self-knowledge, even more pure, As more exposed to suffering and distress.

— William Wordsworth

Though nothing can bring back the hour

— William Wordsworth

But who, if he be called upon to face Is happy as a Lover.

— William Wordsworth

And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw.

— William Wordsworth

Whom neither shape of danger can dismay, Nor thought of tender happiness betray.

— William Wordsworth

As high as we have mounted in delight, In our dejection do we sink as low.

— William Wordsworth

But how can he expect that others should Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all?

— William Wordsworth

I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy, But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.

— William Wordsworth

That heareth not the loud winds when they call, And moveth all together, if it moves at all.

— William Wordsworth

Choice word and measured phrase, above the reach Of ordinary men.

— William Wordsworth

And mighty poets in their misery dead.

— William Wordsworth

For the gods approve The depth, and not the tumult, of the soul.

— William Wordsworth

Mightier far And though his favorite seat be feeble woman's breast.

— William Wordsworth

Elysian beauty, melancholy grace, Brought from a pensive though a happy place.

— William Wordsworth

He spake of love, such love as spirits feel The past unsighed for, and the future sure.

— William Wordsworth

Of all that is most beauteous, imaged there And fields invested with purpureal gleams.

— William Wordsworth

Yet tears to human suffering are due; Are mourned by man, and not by man alone.

— William Wordsworth

As thou these ashes, little brook! will bear By truth, shall spread throughout the world dispersed.

— William Wordsworth

Habit rules the unreflecting herd.

— William Wordsworth

The feather, whence the pen Dropped from an Angel's wing.

— William Wordsworth

Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore Of nicely calculated less or more.

— William Wordsworth

Every gift of noble origin Is breathed upon by Hope’s perpetual breath.

— William Wordsworth

Oh for a single hour of that Dundee Who on that day the word of onset gave!

— William Wordsworth

The best portion of a good man's life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.

— William Wordsworth

In years that bring the philosophic mind.

— William Wordsworth

The human mind is capable of excitement without the application of gross and violent stimulants; and he must have a very faint perception of its beauty and dignity who does not know this.

— William Wordsworth

To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

— William Wordsworth

Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on, Through words and things, a dim and perilous way.

— William Wordsworth

And 't is my faith, that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes.

— William Wordsworth

Up! up! my friend, and quit your books, Why all this toil and trouble?

— William Wordsworth

The bane of all that dread the Devil.

— William Wordsworth

The fretful stir Have hung upon the beatings of my heart.

— William Wordsworth

What is pride? A rocket that emulates the stars.

— William Wordsworth

Men who can hear the Decalogue, and feel To self-reproach.

— William Wordsworth

In modern business it is not the crook who is to be feared most, it is the honest man who doesn't know what he is doing.

— William Wordsworth

As in the eye of Nature he has lived, So in the eye of Nature let him die!

— William Wordsworth

She was a Phantom of delight

— William Wordsworth

Full twenty times was Peter feared, For once that Peter was respected.

— William Wordsworth

One of those heavenly days that cannot die.

— William Wordsworth

The eye--it cannot choose but see;

— William Wordsworth

A violet by a mossy stone Is shining in the sky.

— William Wordsworth

The stars of midnight shall be dear Shall pass into her face.

— William Wordsworth

The cattle are grazing, There are forty feeding like one!

— William Wordsworth

Often have I sighed to measure Only read, perhaps, by me.

— William Wordsworth

Yet sometimes, when the secret cup He felt with spirit so profound.

— William Wordsworth

When from our better selves we have too long

— William Wordsworth

A happy youth, and their old age Is beautiful and free.

— William Wordsworth

Life is divided into three terms - that which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present, to live better in the future.

— William Wordsworth

And often, glad no more, We have been glad of yore.

— William Wordsworth

Until a man might travel twelve stout miles, Or reap an acre of his neighbor's corn.

— William Wordsworth

And he is oft the wisest man Who is not wise at all.

— William Wordsworth

Surprised by joy—impatient as the Wind

— William Wordsworth

Pictures deface walls more often than they decorate them.

— William Wordsworth

A jolly place," said he, "in times of old! But something ails it now: the spot is cursed.

— William Wordsworth

Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream.

— William Wordsworth

Never to blend our pleasure or our pride With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.

— William Wordsworth

A noticeable man, with large gray eyes.

— William Wordsworth

My heart leaps up when I behold

— William Wordsworth

We meet thee, like a pleasant thought, When such are wanted.

— William Wordsworth

The poet's darling.

— William Wordsworth

The best of what we do and are, Just God, forgive!

— William Wordsworth

For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago.

— William Wordsworth

Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain That has been, and may be again.

— William Wordsworth

Yon foaming flood seems motionless as ice; Frozen by distance.

— William Wordsworth

Let beeves and home-bred kine partake Float double, swan and shadow!

— William Wordsworth

A remnant of uneasy light.

— William Wordsworth

To be a Prodigal's favourite,—then, worse truth, A Miser's pensioner,—behold our lot!

— William Wordsworth

Maidens withering on the stalk.

— William Wordsworth

Sweetest melodies Are those that are by distance made more sweet.

— William Wordsworth

The mind that is wise mourns less for what age takes away; than what it leaves behind.

— William Wordsworth

The gentle Lady married to the Moor, And heavenly Una with her milk-white lamb.

— William Wordsworth

Blessings be with them, and eternal praise, Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays.

— William Wordsworth

A power is passing from the earth.

— William Wordsworth

Earth helped him with the cry of blood.

— William Wordsworth

The monumental pomp of age Of seventy years, to loftier height.

— William Wordsworth

"What is good for a bootless bene?" When prayer is of no avail?

— William Wordsworth

But thou that didst appear so fair Her delicate creation.

— William Wordsworth

'T is hers to pluck the amaranthine flower And do not shrink from sorrow's keenest wind.

— William Wordsworth

Faith is a passionate intuition.

— William Wordsworth

We bow our heads before Thee, and we laud In working out a pure intent.

— William Wordsworth

Sad fancies do we then affect, Of too familiar happiness.

— William Wordsworth

The sightless Milton, with his hair For him who bore the world!

— William Wordsworth

Meek Nature's evening comment on the shows From all the fuming vanities of earth.

— William Wordsworth

What though the radiance which was once so bright

— William Wordsworth

Turning, for them who pass, the common dust Of servile opportunity to gold.

— William Wordsworth

To the solid ground Of Nature trusts the mind that builds for aye.

— William Wordsworth

Soft is the music that would charm forever; The flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly.

— William Wordsworth

A Briton even in love should be A subject, not a slave!

— William Wordsworth

And when a damp Soul-animating strains,—alas! too few.

— William Wordsworth

But he is risen, a later star of dawn.

— William Wordsworth

Bright gem instinct with music, vocal spark.

— William Wordsworth

When his veering gait Of music, audible to him alone.

— William Wordsworth

Alas! how little can a moment show A face o'er which a thousand shadows go!

— William Wordsworth

The bosom-weight, your stubborn gift, That no philosophy can lift.

— William Wordsworth

When from our better selves we have too long been parted by the hurrying world, and droop. Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired, how gracious, how benign is solitude.

— William Wordsworth

Nature's old felicities.

— William Wordsworth

Since every mortal power of Coleridge Has vanished from his lonely hearth.

— William Wordsworth

How fast has brother followed brother, From sunshine to the sunless land!

— William Wordsworth

Those old credulities, to Nature dear, Of history?

— William Wordsworth

To begin, begin.

— William Wordsworth

What though the radiance which was once so bright

— William Wordsworth

Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,

— William Wordsworth

From the sweet thoughts of home Was best, could I but shun the spot where man might come.

— William Wordsworth

And oft I thought (my fancy was-so strong) And near a thousand tables pined and wanted food.

— William Wordsworth

How does the Meadow flower its bloom unfold? Because the lovely little flower is free down to its root, and in that freedom bold.

— William Wordsworth

I travelled among unknown men, What love I bore to thee.

— William Wordsworth

Much converse do I find in thee, A solemn image to my heart.

— William Wordsworth

Behold, within the leafy shade, Gleamed like a vision of delight.

— William Wordsworth

She gave me eyes, she gave me ears; And love, and thought, and joy.

— William Wordsworth

Sweet childish days, that were as long As twenty days are now.

— William Wordsworth

Like an army defeated The rain is over and gone.

— William Wordsworth

My heart leaps up when I behold Bound each to each by natural piety.

— William Wordsworth

Earth has not anything to show more fair: All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

— William Wordsworth

Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! And all that mighty heart is lying still!

— William Wordsworth

Rapine, avarice, expense And pure religion breathing household laws.

— William Wordsworth

O for a single hour of that Dundee, Who on that day the word of onset gave!

— William Wordsworth

Pleasures newly found are sweet When they lie about our feet.

— William Wordsworth

Every gift of noble origin Is breathed upon by Hope's perpetual breath.

— William Wordsworth

Hail to thee, far above the rest And this is thy dominion.

— William Wordsworth

Lady of the Mere, Sole-sitting by the shores of old romance.

— William Wordsworth

The flower that smells the sweetest is shy and lowly.

— William Wordsworth

There is a Yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale, Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore.

— William Wordsworth

Of vast circumference and gloom profound, To be destroyed.

— William Wordsworth

Bright flower! whose home is everywhere The forest through.

— William Wordsworth

O Blithe newcomer! I have heard, Or but a wandering Voice?

— William Wordsworth

No bird, but an invisible thing, A voice, a mystery.

— William Wordsworth

Thou unassuming Common-place Which Love makes for thee!

— William Wordsworth

Oft on the dappled turf at ease Loose types of things through all degrees.

— William Wordsworth

The light that never was, on sea or land, The consecration, and the poet's dream.

— William Wordsworth

Dear Child of Nature, let them rail!

— William Wordsworth

Thou, while thy babes around thee cling, A Woman may be made.

— William Wordsworth

But an old age serene and bright, Shall lead thee to thy grave.

— William Wordsworth

Happier of happy though I be, like them Magnificent.

— William Wordsworth

Is there not That shalt be life, the acknowledged voice of life?

— William Wordsworth

Not Chaos, not Into our Minds, into the Mind of Man.

— William Wordsworth

She hath smiles to earth unknown— Do spread, and sink, and rise.

— William Wordsworth

Like—but oh, how different!

— William Wordsworth

In truth the prison, unto which we doom Ourselves, no prison is.

— William Wordsworth

The world is too much with us; late and soon, We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

— William Wordsworth

Great God! I'd rather be Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

— William Wordsworth

One impulse from a vernal wood

— William Wordsworth

Where lies the Land to which yon Ship must go? Festively she puts forth in trim array.

— William Wordsworth

Come, blessed barrier between day and day, Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!

— William Wordsworth

Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know, Our pastime and our happiness will grow.

— William Wordsworth