Boys of the Lyrical Ballad
William Wordsworth & Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1798)
The principal object, then, which I proposed to myself in these Poems was to choose incidents and
situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible, in a
selection of language really used by men; and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain
colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way;
and, further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly
though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in
which we associate ideas in a state of excitement. Low and rustic life was generally chosen, because
in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their
maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language; because in that
condition of life our elementary feelings co-exist in a state of greater simplicity, and, consequently,
may be more accurately contemplated, and more forcibly communicated; because the manners of
rural life germinate from those elementary feelings; and, from the necessary character of rural
occupations, are more easily comprehended, and are more durable; and lastly, because in that
condition the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature.
The language, too, of these men is adopted (purified indeed from what appear to be its real defects,
from all lasting and rational causes of dislike or disgust) because such men hourly communicate with
the best objects from which the best part of language is originally derived; and because, from their
rank in society and the sameness and narrow circle of their intercourse, being less under the influence
of social vanity they convey their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated expressions.
Accordingly, such a language, arising out of repeated experience and regular feelings, is a more
permanent, and a far more philosophical language, than that which is frequently substituted for it by
Poets, who think that they are conferring honour upon themselves and their art, in proportion as they
separate themselves from the sympathies of men, and indulge in arbitrary and capricious habits of
expression, in order to furnish food for fickle tastes, and fickle appetites, of their own creation.
I have said that Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from
emotion recollected in tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated till by a species of reaction the
tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of
contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind.
William Wordsworth
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
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.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay: 10
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood, 20
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils. 1804.
1. Wordsworth made use of the description in his sister's diary, as well as of his memory of the
daffodils in Gowbarrow Park, by Ullswater. Cf. Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, April 15,
1802: "I never saw daffodils so beautiful. They grew among the mossy stones . . .; some
rested their heads upon these stones, as on a pillow for weariness; and the rest tossed and
reeled and danced, and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind, that blew upon them
over the lake; they looked so gay, ever glancing, ever changing."
21-22.
Wordsworth said that these were the two best lines in the poem and that they were composed
by his wife.
To My Sister
IT is the first mild day of March:
Each minute sweeter than before
The redbreast sings from the tall larch
That stands beside our door.
There is a blessing in the air,
Which seems a sense of joy to yield
To the bare trees, and mountains bare,
And grass in the green field.
My sister! ('tis a wish of mine)
Now that our morning meal is done, 10
Make haste, your morning task resign;
Come forth and feel the sun.
Edward will come with you;--and, pray,
Put on with speed your woodland dress;
And bring no book: for this one day
We'll give to idleness.
No joyless forms shall regulate
Our living calendar:
We from to-day, my Friend, will date
The opening of the year. 20
Love, now a universal birth,
From heart to heart is stealing,
From earth to man, from man to earth:
--It is the hour of feeling.
One moment now may give us more
Than years of toiling reason:
Our minds shall drink at every pore
The spirit of the season.
Some silent laws our hearts will make,
Which they shall long obey: 30
We for the year to come may take
Our temper from to-day.
And from the blessed power that rolls
About, below, above,
We'll frame the measure of our souls:
They shall be tuned to love.
Then come, my Sister! come, I pray,
With speed put on your woodland dress;
And bring no book: for this one day
We'll give to idleness. 40
1798.
Grasmere Journal
(Lines and phrases in italics are direct quotations from Dorothy Wordsworth’s Journal.)
He has taken my speechless kiss and gone
To his Mary now in the middle of May.
I sate a long time upon a stone
He will bring her back as a bride some day.
I capture the wind and the small rain,
The rhythms of work, the evening quiet.
I shall give William pleasure by it
When he comes home.
I plant and hoe for the distant yield
But without his warmth the day is raw.
I turned aside at my favourite field,
My heart dissolved in what I saw.
Weather and sky and all I feel,
The love, the loneliness, the lake
With spear-shaped steaks of polished steel
An offering for William’s sake.
On his return will he confess
that our haven here from the world’s din
Calls home the heart to quietness?
I could not keep the tears within.
The skobby sate quietly in its nest.
But I labor long and listen late
Till my heart leaps up and the hour is blest
With William’s hand on the trembling gate.
He’s home. The Grasmere fills the sky
And my brimming love can ask no more
Than this dance of spirits bounded by
Its small circumference of shore.
Virginia Hamilton Adair/ Dorothy Wordsworth
This poem was co-written by Virginia Hamilton Adair (still living, as of this writing) and Dorothy Wordsworth (long dead). Adair published her first book of verse as she was approaching 80. Dorothy kept detailed journals from which William later expropriated materials for his poetry.
The relationship between Wordsworth and his sister strikes some modern observers as having been a little too close. (She continued to live with her brother after he got married.) But they were orphaned as children, and all each other had while growing up.
Wordsworth has been described as being treated as a “household god” by his wife and sister. They did everything to make the great poet’s life easier. (To his credit, William took care of Dorothy for the last twenty years of her life after she suffered a debilitating stroke.)
Some (feminist) critics say that Dorothy sacrified her talents for her brother’s fame.
My Heart Leaps Up
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
1802.
It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free
IT is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;
The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea:
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder--everlastingly.
Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year;
And worship'st at the Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.
1. The poem was written at Calais, where Wordsworth and his sister had gone to meet Annette
Vallon and her child, his French daughter Caroline. "We walked by the sea-shore almost
every evening with Annette and Caroline, or William and I alone" (Dorothy Wordsworth's
Journal).
2. See Luke 16: 22.
20 And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores,
21 And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs
came and licked his sores.
22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's
bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in
his bosom.
24 And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may
dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and
likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.
On a walking tour of Scotland, Wordsworth came across a peasant girl mowing in a field and singing a song in Gaelic. He had no idea what she was saying, but was still touched by the beauty of the scene.
The Solitary Reaper
BEHOLD her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.
No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands 10
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.
Will no one tell me what she sings?--
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago: 20
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?
Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;--
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill 30
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.
from “The Prelude”
“The Prelude” is a long autobiographical poem in which Wordsworth discusses how he came to become a poet. The two selections that follow detail meaningful events that occurred in Wordsworth’s childhood.
One summer evening (led by her*) I found *NATURE
A little boat tied to a willow tree
Within a rocky cave, its usual home.
Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping in 360
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,
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, 370
The horizon's utmost boundary; far 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, 380
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 390
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.
And in the frosty season, when the sun
Was set, and visible for many a mile
The cottage windows blazed through twilight gloom,
I heeded not their summons: happy time
It was indeed for all of us--for me
It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud 430
The village clock tolled six,--I wheeled about,
Proud and exulting like an untired horse
That cares not for his home. All shod with steel,
We hissed along the polished ice in games
Confederate, imitative of the chase
And woodland pleasures,--the resounding horn,
The pack loud chiming, and the hunted hare.
So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
And not a voice was idle; with the din
Smitten, the precipices rang aloud; 440
The leafless trees and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron; while far distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound
Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars
Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west
The orange sky of evening died away.
Not seldom from the uproar I retired
Into a silent bay, or sportively
Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng,
To cut across the reflex of a star 450
That fled, and, flying still before me, gleamed
Upon the glassy plain; and oftentimes,
When we had given our bodies to the wind,
And all the shadowy banks on either side
Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still
The rapid line of motion, then at once
Have I, reclining back upon my heels,
Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs
Wheeled by me--even as if the earth had rolled
With visible motion her diurnal round! 460
Behind me did they stretch in solemn train,
Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched
Till all was tranquil as a dreamless sleep.
Ye Presences of Nature in the sky
And on the earth! Ye Visions of the hills!
And Souls of lonely places! can I think
A vulgar hope was yours when ye employed
Such ministry, when ye, through many a year
Haunting me thus among my boyish sports,
On caves and trees, upon the woods and hills, 470
Impressed, upon all forms, the characters
Of danger or desire; and thus did make
The surface of the universal earth,
With triumph and delight, with hope and fear,
Work like a sea?
INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD
I
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.