Pearls from the Poetry of William Wordsworth

From Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey
by William Wordsworth (1770-1850) 


                                That blessed mood,
In which the burden of the mystery,
In which the heavy and weary weight
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
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.

                          ***

                                         And I have felt
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,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thoughts,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
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 recognize
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.

                          ***

                               Nature never did betray
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
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
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.


From Lines Left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree

If Thou be one whose heart the holy forms 
Of young imagination have kept pure, 
Stranger! henceforth be warned; and know that pride, 
Howe’er disguised in its own majesty, 
Is littleness; that he, who feels contempt 
For any living thing, hath faculties 
Which he has never used; that thought with him 
Is in its infancy. The man whose eye 
Is ever on himself doth look on one, 
The least of Nature’s works, one who might move 
The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds 
Unlawful, ever. O be wiser, Thou! 
Instructed that true knowledge leads to love; 
True dignity abides with him alone 
Who, in the silent hour of inward thought, 
Can still suspect, and still revere himself 
In lowliness of heart.


From Ode: Intimations of Immortality

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,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
         He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
         Must travel, still is Nature’s Priest,
         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.

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