ROMANTIC POETRY

Aiou course code 9063 BS English

Asstt Prof Syed Salahuddin Bukhari
The Sick Rose BY William Blake

O Rose thou art sick.

The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
London BY William Blake

I wander thro' each charter'd street,

Near where the charter'd Thames does flow.
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every Man,
In every Infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear
How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackening Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls
But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse
A Poison Tree BY William Blake
I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I watered it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night.
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.
And into my garden stole,
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see;
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth was born on April
7, 1770, in Cockermouth, Cumberland, England,
in a location known for its stunning beauty. He
was John Wordsworth's and his wife Anne's
second child. Wordsworth's family was well-off
socially and financially. His father worked as an
attorney and a land steward, while his mother was
a well-respected businesswoman.
 THE SOLITARY REAPER published
in 1807

Behold her, single in the field, Will no one tell me what she sings?—
Yon solitary Highland Lass! Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
Reaping and singing by herself; For old, unhappy, far-off things,
Stop here, or gently pass! And battles long ago:
Alone she cuts and binds the grain, Or is it some more humble lay,
And sings a melancholy strain; Familiar matter of to-day?
O listen! for the Vale profound Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
Is overflowing with the sound. That has been, and may be again?
No Nightingale did ever chaunt Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
More welcome notes to weary bands As if her song could have no ending;
Of travellers in some shady haunt, I saw her singing at her work,
Among Arabian sands: And o'er the sickle bending;—
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard I listened, motionless and still;
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird, And, as I mounted up the hill,
Breaking the silence of the seas The music in my heart I bore,
Among the farthest Hebrides. Long after it was heard no more.
 TINTERN ABBEY by William
Wordsworth
Five years have past; five summers, with the length Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
Of five long winters! and again I hear With some uncertain notice, as might seem
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
With a soft inland murmur.—Once again Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, The Hermit sits alone.
That on a wild secluded scene impress These beauteous forms,
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect Through a long absence, have not been to me
The landscape with the quiet of the sky. As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
The day is come when I again repose But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves And passing even into my purer mind
'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see With tranquil restoration:—feelings too
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms, As have no slight or trivial influence
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
 TINTERN ABBEY by William
Wordsworth
On that best portion of a good man's life, If this
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft—
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, In darkness and amid the many shapes
To them I may have owed another gift, Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
In which the burthen of the mystery, Have hung upon the beatings of my heart—
In which the heavy and the weary weight How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,
Of all this unintelligible world, O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods,
Is lightened:—that serene and blessed mood, How often has my spirit turned to thee!
In which the affections gently lead us on,— And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame With many recognitions dim and faint,
And even the motion of our human blood And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep The picture of the mind revives again:
In body, and become a living soul: While here I stand, not only with the sense
While with an eye made quiet by the power Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.
 LONDON BY WILLIAM
WORDSWORTH

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:

England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart:
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
William Wordsworth is one of the most important key
figures in the movement of English Romanticism. His
contributions to English Romantic poetry are many, which
have earned him acclaim that continues to persist to this
day. He wrote poetry for everyone, promoting the use of
common language and natural themes. He found nature to
be a healer and guiding force for human beings. He
showed displeasure at the growing urbanization and the
deteriorating state of London. And wrote, urging people to
turn back to the purer and simpler way of life.
Wordsworth’s poems are full high imagination, feelings
and the beauty of the natural world.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English lyrical poet, critic, and philosopher
who lived from October 21, 1772, in Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire, England, to
July 25, 1834, in Highgate, near London. His Lyrical Ballads, co-written with
William Wordsworth, ushered in the English Romantic Period, and his
Biographia Literaria (1817) is the most important work of general literary
critique created during the period.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge is known for writing two of the greatest English
poems, "Kubla Khan" and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." He may have
done more than any other writer to popularize the ideas of the English
romantic movement as a critic and philosopher.
 Kubla Khan by Samuel Tailor Coleridge

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
A stately pleasure-dome decree: Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
Through caverns measureless to man It flung up momently the sacred river.
Down to a sunless sea. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
So twice five miles of fertile ground Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
With walls and towers were girdled round; Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
And here were forests ancient as the hills, Ancestral voices prophesying war!
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. The shadow of the dome of pleasure
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Floated midway on the waves;
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! Where was heard the mingled measure
A savage place! as holy and enchanted From the fountain and the caves.
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted It was a miracle of rare device,
By woman wailing for her demon-lover! A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a seven-part ballad composed by

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Coleridge, Samuel 81-100). It was first
published in 1798 as an anonymous work in Lyrical Ballads, a
collection of lyrical poems he co-authored with William Wordsworth.
The poem narrates the account of a sailor's hardships on a journey
when he kills an albatross, and his subsequent redemption through
faith and resignation to nature's forces. The poem is about how the
Ancient Mariner’s ship sailed past the Equator and was driven by
storms to the cold regions towards the South Pole; from thence she
sailed back to the tropical Latitude of the Pacific Ocean; how the
Ancient Mariner cruelly and inhospitably-killed a sea-bird called
Albatross, and how he was followed by many and strange
distresses; and also how he could come back to his own country.
 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Tailor
Coleridge
It is an ancient Mariner, The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:
And he stoppeth one of three. He cannot choose but hear;
'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, And thus spake on that ancient man,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me? The bright-eyed Mariner.

The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, 'The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,
And I am next of kin; Merrily did we drop
The guests are met, the feast is set: Below the kirk, below the hill,
May'st hear the merry din.' Below the lighthouse top.

He holds him with his skinny hand, The Sun came up upon the left,
'There was a ship,' quoth he. Out of the sea came he!
'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!' And he shone bright, and on the right
Eftsoons his hand dropt he. Went down into the sea.

He holds him with his glittering eye— Higher and higher every day,
The Wedding-Guest stood still, Till over the mast at noon—'
And listens like a three years' child: The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
The Mariner hath his will. For he heard the loud bassoon.
 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Tailor
Coleridge
And now there came both mist and snow,
The bride hath paced into the hall, And it grew wondrous cold:
Red as a rose is she; And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
Nodding their heads before her goes As green as emerald.
The merry minstrelsy.
The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast, And through the drifts the snowy clifts
Yet he cannot choose but hear; Did send a dismal sheen:
And thus spake on that ancient man, Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken—
The bright-eyed Mariner. The ice was all between.

And now the STORM-BLAST came, and he The ice was here, the ice was there,
Was tyrannous and strong: The ice was all around:
He struck with his o'ertaking wings, It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
And chased us south along. Like noises in a swound!

With sloping masts and dipping prow, At length did cross an Albatross,
As who pursued with yell and blow Thorough the fog it came;
Still treads the shadow of his foe, As if it had been a Christian soul,
And forward bends his head, We hailed it in God's name.
The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled.
It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through!

And a good south wind sprung up behind;

The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner's hollo!

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,

It perched for vespers nine;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white Moon-shine.'

'God save thee, ancient Mariner!

From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
Why look'st thou so?'—With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS.
 Youth and Age by Samuel Tailor Coleridge

Verse, a breeze mid blossoms straying, Ere I was old!

Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee— Ere I was old? Ah woful Ere,
Both were mine! Life went a-maying Which tells me, Youth's no longer here!
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy, O Youth! for years so many and sweet,
When I was young! 'Tis known, that Thou and I were one,
When I was young?—Ah, woful When! I'll think it but a fond conceit—
Ah! for the change 'twixt Now and Then! It cannot be that Thou art gone!
This breathing house not built with hands, Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd:—
This body that does me grievous wrong, And thou wert aye a masker bold!
O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands, What strange disguise hast now put on,
How lightly then it flashed along:— To make believe, that thou are gone?
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore, I see these locks in silvery slips,
On winding lakes and rivers wide, This drooping gait, this altered size:
That ask no aid of sail or oar, But Spring-tide blossoms on thy lips,
That fear no spite of wind or tide! And tears take sunshine from thine eyes!
Nought cared this body for wind or weather Life is but thought: so think I will
When Youth and I lived in't together. That Youth and I are house-mates still.
Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like; Dew-drops are the gems of morning,
Friendship is a sheltering tree; But the tears of mournful eve!
O! the joys, that came down shower-like, Where no hope is, life's a warning
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty, That only serves to make us grieve,
When we are old:
That only serves to make us grieve
With oft and tedious taking-leave,
Like some poor nigh-related guest,
That may not rudely be dismist;
Yet hath outstay'd his welcome while,
And tells the jest without the smile.
 In this highly romantic poem, Coleridge contrasts youth and old age. The
poet has attempted to illustrate how these two stages of our lives are so dissimilar.
One resembles a blossoming flower, while the other resembles the sunrise. The
poet employed a variety of wonderful pictures to convey these two stages of
existence.
As we read the opening verse,' we realize that the poet has associated
youth with all of life's wonderful aspects and has conveyed the joys and liberties
that he experienced as a child through the use of vivid imagery. The poet was full
of lofty ambitions and expectations for the future, and everything appeared to be
good and readily achievable. The poet was filled with new power and life, and the
world appeared to be good. Coleridge has succeeded in conveying the delights of
childhood.
The poet laments the passage of time. He recalls his childhood memories
vividly. And he mulls on the changes that time has brought about in him, changes
that have occurred in his physique. As a result, we can see that Coleridge has
captured the helplessness of old age through his imaginative abilities. In his youth,
the poet recalls having all of life's blessings. He had a lot of energy and was very
active.
 S.T Coleridge is a renowned and celebrated poet,
philosopher and critic. His poetry centers around important
romantic themes such as the beauty and power of nature,
the supernatural and the fantastic. The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner and Kubla Khan are two of his most famous works
which showcase his poetic genius. Both poems deal
masterfully with the mystical and magical. Coleridge
captures his readers’ attention with compelling diction,
elements of wonder and mystery.
To be Continued……………………