William Wordsworth Quotes

Small service is true service, while it lasts.

How many undervalue the power of simplicity ! But it is the real key to the heart.

I have seen A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract Of inland ground, applying to his ear The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell; To which, in silence hushed, his very soul listened intensely; for from within were heard Murmurings whereby the monitor expressed Mysterious union with its native sea. Even such a shell the universe itself Is to the ear of faith; and there are times, I doubt not, when to you it doth impart Authentic tidings of invisible things, Of ebb and flow, and ever enduring power, And central peace, subsisting at the heart Of endless Agitation.

The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction: not indeed For that which is most worthy to be blest - Delight and liberty, the simple creed Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast.

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

Bright was the summer's noon when quickening steps
Followed each other till a dreary moor
Was crossed, a bare ridge clomb, upon whose top
Standing alone, as from a rampart's edge,
I overlooked the bed of Windermere,
Like a vast river, stretching in the sun.

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.

Wisdom and Spirit of the universe! Thou soul, that art the eternity of thought, And giv'st to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion.

But He is risen, a later star of dawn.

Up! up! my friend, and quit your books, Or surely you 'll grow double! Up! up! my friend, and clear your looks! Why all this toil and trouble?

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

Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.

Heaven lies about us in our infancy.

But to a higher mark than song can reach,
Rose this pure eloquence.

It may be safely affirmed that there neither is, nor can be, any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition ... They both speak by and to the same organs; the bodies in which both of them are clothed may be said to be of the same substance, their affections are kindred, and almost identical, not necessarily differing even in degree; Poetry sheds no tears "such as Angels weep," but natural and human tears; she can boast of no celestial ichor that distinguishes her vital juices from those of prose; the same human blood circulates through the veins of them both.

The tears into his eyes were brought, And thanks and praises seemed to run So fast out of his heart, I thought They never would have done. -I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds With coldness still returning; Alas! the gratitude of men Hath oftener left me mourning.

Is then no nook of English ground secure
From rash assault?

And suddenly all your troubles melt away, all your worries are gone, and it is for no reason other than the look in your partner's eyes. Yes, sometimes life and love really is that simple.

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

Hope smiled when your nativity was cast,
Children of Summer!

Poetry is the image of man and nature

Those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realised,
High instincts before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised

Wisdom is oft-times nearer when we stoop
Than when we soar.

If thou art beautiful, and youth and thought endue thee with all truth-be strong;
be worthy of the grace of God.

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.

A deep distress hath humanised my soul.

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 pr

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

The world is too much with us.

Great God! I'd rather be a Pagan....

On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life,
Musing is solitude

Because the good old rule Sufficeth them,-the simple plan, That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can.

Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark,
And has the nature of infinity.

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 ever prevail against us.

One solace yet remains for us who came Into this world in days when story lacked Severe research, that in our hearts we know How, for exciting youth's heroic flame, Assent is power, belief the soul of fact.

The power of any art is limited

Delivered from the galling yoke of time.

Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge - it is as immortal as the heart of man.

CHARACTER of the HAPPY WARRIOR. Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he Whom every Man in arms should wish to be? - It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought Upon the plan that pleased his childish thought: Whose high endeavours are an inward light That make the path before him always bright: Who, with a natural instinct to discern What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn; Abides by this resolve, and stops not there, 10 But makes his moral being his prime care; Who, doom'd to go in company with Pain, And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train!

Far from the world I walk, and from all care.

One in whom persuasion and belief
Had ripened into faith, and faith become
A passionate intuition.

Rapt into still communion that transcends The imperfect offices of prayer and praise, His mind was a thanksgiving to the power That made him; it was blessedness and love!

As generations come and go, Their arts, their customs, ebb and flow; Fate, fortune, sweep strong powers away, And feeble, of themselves, decay.

For youthful faults ripe virtues shall atone.

Faith is, necessary to explain anything, and to reconcile the foreknowledge of God with human evil.

Wisdom sits with children round her knees.

Private courts, Gloomy as coffins, and unsightly lanes Thrilled by some female vendor's scream, belike The very shrillest of all London cries, May then entangle our impatient steps; Conducted through those labyrinths, unawares, To privileged regions and inviolate, Where from their airy lodges studious lawyers Look out on waters, walks, and gardens green.

His love was like the liberal air, embracing all, to cheer and bless.

The Primrose for a veil had spread The largest of her upright leaves; And thus for purposes benign, A simple flower deceives.

Therefore, let the moon shine on thee in thy solitary walk; And let the misty-mountain winds be free to blow against thee.

Surprised by joy- impatient as the Wind
I turned to share the transport
Oh! with whom
But thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find?
Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind
But how could I forget thee? Through what power,
Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grievous loss?
That thought's return
Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,
Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more;
That neither present time, nor years unborn
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.

Whether we be young or old,Our destiny, our being's heart and home,Is with infinitude, and only there;With hope it is, hope that can never die,Effort and expectation, and desire,And something evermore about to be.

The fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world Have hung upon the beatings of my heart.

Society has parted man from man, neglectful of the universal heart.

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

No motion has she now, no force; she neither hears nor sees; rolled around in earth's diurnal course, with rocks, and stones, and trees.

My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once ...

What is pride? A rocket that emulates the stars.

Minds that have nothing to confer Find little to perceive.

The thought of death sits easy on the man Who has been born and dies among the mountains.

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.

Then my heart with pleasure fills And dances with the daffodils.

The weight of sadness was in wonder lost.

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

Yon foaming flood seems motionless as ice;Its dizzy turbulence eludes the eye,Frozen by distance.

[Mathematics] is an independent world created out of pure intelligence.

A Night Piece

The sky is overcast
With a continuous cloud of texture close,
Heavy and wan, all whitened by the Moon,
Which through that veil is indistinctly seen,
A dull, contracted circle, yielding light
So feebly spread, that not a shadow falls,
Chequering the ground--from rock, plant, tree, or tower.
At length a pleasant instantaneous gleam
Startles the pensive traveller while he treads
His lonesome path, with unobserving eye
Bent earthwards; he looks up--the clouds are split
Asunder,--and above his head he sees
The clear Moon, and the glory of the heavens.
There, in a black-blue vault she sails along,
Followed by multitudes of stars, that, small
And sharp, and bright, along the dark abyss
Drive as she drives: how fast they wheel away,
Yet vanish not!--the wind is in the tree,
But they are silent;--still they roll along
Immeasurably distant; and the vault,
Built round by those white clouds, enormous clouds,
Still deepens its unfathomable depth.
At length the Vision closes; and the mind,
Not undisturbed by the delight it feels,
Which slowly settles into peaceful calm,
Is left to muse upon the solemn scene

I heard a thousand blended notes, While in a grove I sate reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind. To her fair works did Nature link The human soul that through me ran; And much it grieved my heart to think What man has made of man. Through

Yet tears to human suffering are due; And mortal hopes defeated and o'erthrown Are mourned by man, and not by man alone.

The education of circumstances is superior to that of tuition.

Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close upon the growing boy.

Books are the best type of the influence of the past.

Portentous change when History can appear
As the cool Advocate of foul device;
Reckless audacity extol, and jeer
At consciences perplexed with scruples nice!
They who bewail not, must abhor, the sneer
Born of Conceit, Power's blind Idolater;
Or haply sprung from vaunting Cowardice
Betrayed by mockery of holy fear.
Hath it not long been said the wrath of Man
Works not the righteousness of God? Oh bend, 10
Bend, ye Perverse! to judgments from on High,
Laws that lay under Heaven's perpetual ban
All principles of action that transcend
The sacred limits of humanity.

Lines Written In Early Spring

I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure:--
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

Dreams, books, are each a world.

Books are yours,
Within whose silent chambers treasure lies
Preserved from age to age; more precious far
Than that accumulated store of gold
And orient gems, which, for a day of need,
The Sultan hides deep in ancestral tombs.
These hoards of truth you can unlock at will:

Thou has left behind Powers that will work for thee,-air, earth, and skies! There 's not a breathing of the common wind That will forget thee; thou hast great allies; Thy friends are exultations, agonies, And love, and man's unconquerable mind.

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

The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, An appetite; a feeling and a love that had no need of a remoter charm by thought supplied, nor any interest Unborrowed from the eye.

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

Great is the glory, for the strife is hard!

And yet the wiser mind
Mourns less for what age takes away
Than what it leaves behind.

Sweet Mercy! to the gates of heaven This minstrel lead, his sins forgiven; The rueful conflict, the heart riven With vain endeavour, And memory of Earth's bitter leaven Effaced forever.

And homeless near a thousand homes I stood, And near a thousand tables pined and wanted food.

Our meddling intellect Misshapes the beauteous forms of things We murder to dissect

In heaven above, And earth below, they best can serve true gladness Who meet most feelingly the calls of sadness.

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

Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed
Their snow-white blossoms on my head,
With brightest sunshine round me spread
Of spring's unclouded weather,
In this sequestered nook how sweet
To sit upon my orchard-seat!
And birds and flowers once more to greet,
My last year's friends together.

These words were utter'd in a pensive mood, Even while mine eyes were on that solemn sight:

Friend is the one who showes the way and walks a piece of road with us

Pleasure is spread through the earth In stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find.

Such views the youthful Bard allure,
But, heedless of the following gloom,
He deems their colours shall endure
'Till peace go with him to the tomb.
- And let him nurse his fond deceit,
And what if he must die in sorrow!
Who would not cherish dreams so sweet,
Though grief and pain may come tomorrow?

This City now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie
Open unto the fields and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Milton, in his hand
The thing became a trumpet

What we need is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out.

Poetry has never brought me in enough money to buy shoestrings.

Hence, in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea

The ocean is a mighty harmonist.

could have laugh'd myself to scorn, to find In that decrepit Man so firm a mind.

...The happy Warrior... is he... who, with a natural instinct to discern what knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn; abides by this resolve, and stops not there, but makes his moral being his prime care.