The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth

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Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012 - 254 páginas
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1836 edition. Excerpt: ... With all their fragrance, all their glistening, Call to the heart for inward listening--And though for bridal wreaths and tokens true Welcomed wisely; though a growth Which the careless shepherd sleeps on, As fitly spring from turf the mourner weeps on--And without wrong are cropped the marble tomb to strew. The charm is over; the mute phantom's gone, Nor will return--but droop not, favoured Youth; The apparition that before thee shone Obeyed a summons covetous of truth. From these wild rocks thy footsteps I will guide To bowers in which thy fortune may be tried, And one of the bright Three become thy happy Bride. 1828. THE WISHING-GATE. In the vale of Grasmere, by the side of the old high-way leading to Ambleside, is a gate, which, time out of mind, has been called the Wishing-gate, from a belief that wishes formed or indulged there have a favourable issue. Hope rules a land for ever green: All powers that serve the bright-eyed Queen Are confident and gay; Clouds at her bidding disappear; Points she to aught?--the bliss draws near, And Fancy smooths the way. Not such the land of Wishes--there Dwell fruitless day-dreams, lawless prayer, And thoughts with things at strife; Yet how forlorn, should ye depart Ye superstitions of the heart, How poor, were human life! When magic lore abjured its might, Ye did not forfeit one dear right, One tender claim abate; Witness this symbol of your sway, Surviving near the public way, The rustic Wishing-gatc! Inquire not if the faery race Shed kindly influence on the place, Ere northward they retired; If here a warrior left a spell, Panting for glory as he fell; Or here a saint expired. Enough that all around is fair, Composed with Nature's finest care, And in her fondest love--Peace to embosom and content--To...

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William Wordsworth, 1770 - 1850 Born April 7, 1770 in the "Lake Country" of northern England, the great English poet William Wordsworth, son of a prominent aristocrat, was orphaned at an early age. He attended boarding school in Hawkesmead and, after an undistinguished career at Cambridge, he spent a year in revolutionary France, before returning to England a penniless radical. Wordsworth later received honorary degrees from the University of Durham and Oxford University. He is best known for his work "The Prelude", which was published after his death. For five years, Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy lived very frugally in rural England, where they met Samuel Taylor Coleridge. "Lyrical Ballads", published anonymously in 1798, led off with Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner" and ended with Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey". Between these two masterworks are at least a dozen other great poems. "Lyrical Ballads" is often said to mark the beginning of the English romantic revolution. A second, augmented edition in 1800 was prefaced by one of the great manifestos in world literature, an essay that called for natural language in poetry, subject matter dealing with ordinary men and women, a return to emotions and imagination, and a conception of poetry as pleasure and prophecy. Together with Robert Southey, these three were known as the "Lake Poets", the elite of English poetry. Before he was 30, Wordsworth had begun the supreme work of his life, The Prelude, an immensely long autobiographical work on "The Growth of the Poet's Mind," a theme unprecedented in poetry. Although first finished in 1805, The Prelude was never published in Wordsworth's lifetime. Between 1797 and 1807, he produced a steady stream of magnificent works, but little of his work over the last four decades of his life matters greatly. "The Excursion", a poem of epic length, was considered by Hazlitt and Keats to be among the wonders of the age. After "Lyrical Ballads", Wordsworth turned to his own life, his spiritual and poetical development, as his major theme. More than anyone else, he dealt with mysterious affinities between nature and humanity. Poems like the "Ode on the Intimations of Immortality" have a mystical power quite independent of any particular creed, and simple lyrics like "The Solitary Reaper" produced amazingly powerful effects with the simplest materials. Wordsworth also revived the sonnet and is one of the greatest masters of that form. Wordsworth is one of the giants of English poetry and criticism, his work ranging from the almost childishly simple to the philosophically profound. Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinson in 1802 and in 1813, obtained a sinecure as distributor of stamps for Westmoreland. At this stage of his life, Wordsworth's political beliefs had strayed from liberal to staunchly conservative. His last works were published around 1835, a few trickled in as the years went on, but the bulk of his writing had slowed. In 1842 he was awarded a government pension and in 1843 became the Poet Laureate of England, after the post was vacated by his friend Coleridge. Wordsworth wrote over 523 sonnets in the course of his lifetime. Wordsworth died at Rydal Mount on April 23, 1850. He is buried in Grasme Curchyard. He was 80 years old.

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