William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

On April 7, 1770, William Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, Cumbria, England. Wordsworth's
mother died when he was eight—this experience shapes much of his later work. Wordsworth a ended
Hawkshead Grammar School, where his love of poetry was rmly established and, it is believed, he made
his rst a empts at verse. While he was at Hawkshead, Wordsworth's father died leaving him and his
four siblings orphans. A er Hawkshead, Wordsworth studied at St. John's College in Cambridge and
before his nal semester, he set out on a walking tour of Europe, an experience that in uenced both his
poetry and his poli cal sensibili es. While touring Europe, Wordsworth came into contact with the
French Revolu on. This experience as well as a subsequent period living in France, brought about
Wordsworth's interest and sympathy for the life, troubles, and speech of the "common man." These
issues proved to be of the utmost importance to Wordsworth's work. Wordsworth's earliest poetry was
published in 1793 in the collec ons An Evening Walk and Descrip ve Sketches. While living in France,
Wordsworth conceived a daughter, Caroline, out of wedlock; he le France, however, before she was
born. In 1802, he returned to France with his sister on a four-week visit to meet Caroline. Later that year,
he married Mary Hutchinson, a childhood friend, and they had ve children together. In 1812, while living
in Grasmere, two of their children—Catherine and John—died.
Equally important in the poe c life of Wordsworth was his 1795 mee ng with the poet Samuel Taylor
Coleridge. It was with Coleridge that Wordsworth published the famous Lyrical Ballads (J. & A. Arch) in
1798. While the poems themselves are some of the most in uen al in Western literature, it is the
preface to the second edi on that remains one of the most important testaments to a poet's views on
both his cra and his place in the world. In the preface Wordsworth writes on the need for "common
speech" within poems and argues against the hierarchy of the period which valued epic poetry above the
lyric.
Wordsworth's most famous work, The Prelude (Edward Moxon, 1850), is considered by many to be the
crowning achievement of English roman cism. The poem, revised numerous mes, chronicles the
spiritual life of the poet and marks the birth of a new genre of poetry. Although Wordsworth worked on
The Prelude throughout his life, the poem was published posthumously. Wordsworth spent his nal years
se led at Rydal Mount in England, travelling and con nuing his outdoor excursions. Devastated by the
death of his daughter Dora in 1847, Wordsworth seemingly lost his will to compose poems. William
Wordsworth died at Rydal Mount on April 23, 1850, leaving his wife Mary to publish The Prelude three
months later.

“Poetry is the spontaneous over ow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emo on recollected in
tranquility.”
“The child is father of the man.”
“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.”
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 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;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

[I wandered lonely as a Cloud]

I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That oats on high o'er Vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden Da odils;
Beside the Lake, beneath the trees,
Flu ering and dancing in the breeze.

Con nuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
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 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 li le thought
What wealth the shew to me had brought:

For o when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They ash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure lls,
And dances with the Da odils.

The Solitary Reaper

Behold her, single in the eld,
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 over owing with the sound.

No Nigh ngale did ever chaunt

More welcome notes to weary bands
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 Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring- me from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?—

Perhaps the plain ve numbers ow
For old, unhappy, far-o things,
And ba les long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar ma er 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 listen'd, mo onless and s ll;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long a er it was heard no more.

Source: h ps://[Link]/poetsorg/poet/william-wordsworth
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