# William Wordsworth

- Quotes: 39
- Author page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-wordsworth

## Books

- [The Prelude](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-wordsworth/the-prelude.md) — 39 quotes

## Recently added quotes

> And Como! thou, a treasure whom the earth
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> Keeps to herself, confined as in a depth
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> Of Abyssinian privacy. I spake
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> Of thee, thy chestnut woods, and garden plots
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> Of Indian-corn tended by dark-eyed maids;
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> Thy lofty steeps, and pathways roofed with vines,
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> Winding from house to house, from town to town,
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> Sole link that binds them to each other; walks,
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> League after league, and cloistral avenues,
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> Where silence dwells if music be not there:
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> While yet a youth undisciplined in verse,
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> Through fond ambition of that hour, I strove
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> To chant your praise; nor can approach you now
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> Ungreeted by a more melodious song,
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> Where tones of nature smoothed by learned art
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> May flow in lasting current. Like a breeze
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> Or sunbeam over your domain I passed
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> In motion without pause; but ye have left
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> Your beauty with me, a serene accord
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> Of forms and colors, passive, yet endowed
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> In their submissiveness with power as sweet
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> And gracious, almost might I dare to say,
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> As virtue is, or goodness; sweet as love,
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> Or the remembrance of a generous deed,
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> Or mildest visitation of pure thought,
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> When God, the giver of all joy, is thanked
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> Religiously, in silent blessedness;
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> Sweet as this last herself, for such it is.

> A day
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> Spent in a round of strenuous idleness.

> Nor was it mean delight
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> To watch crude Nature work in untaught minds;
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> To note the laws and progress of belief;
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> Though obstinate on this way, yet on that
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> How willingly we travel, and how far!
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> To have, for instance, brought upon the scene
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> The champion, Jack the Giant-killer: Lo!
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> He dons his coat of darkness; on the stage
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> Walks, and achieves his wonders, from the eye
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> Of living Mortal covert, "as the moon
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> Hid in her vacant interlunar cave."
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> Delusion bold! and how can it be wrought?
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> The garb he wears is black as death, the word
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> "Invisible" flames forth upon his chest.

> Oh there is blessing in this gentle breeze,
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> A visitant that while it fans my cheek
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> Doth seem half-conscious of the joy it brings
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> From the green fields, and from yon azure sky.
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> Whate'er its mission, the soft breeze can come
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> To none more grateful than to me; escaped
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> From the vast city, where I long had pined
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> A discontented sojourner: now free,
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> Free as a bird to settle where I will.

> All moveables of wonder, from all parts,
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> Are here—Albinos, painted Indians, Dwarfs,
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> The Horse of knowledge, and the learned Pig,
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> The Stone-eater, the man that swallows fire,
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> Giants, Ventriloquists, the Invisible Girl,
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> The Bust that speaks and moves its goggling eyes,
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> The Wax-work, Clock-work, all the marvellous craft
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> Of modern Merlins, Wild Beasts, Puppet-shows,
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> All out-o'-the-way, far-fetched, perverted things,
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> All freaks of nature, all Promethean thoughts
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> Of man, his dullness, madness, and their feats
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> All jumbled up together, to compose
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> A Parliament of Monsters.

> The earth is all before me. With a heart
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> Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty,
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> I look about; and should the chosen guide
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> Be nothing better than a wandering cloud,
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> I cannot miss my way.

> With the din
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> Smitten, the precipices rang aloud;
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> The leafless trees and every icy crag
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> Tinkled like iron; while far distant hills
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> Into the tumult sent an alien sound
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> Of melancholy.

> The budding rose above the rose full blown.

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

> Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
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> But to be young was very heaven!

> Characters of the great Apocalypse,
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> The types and symbols of Eternity,
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> Of first, and last, and midst, and without end.

> Leaving the tumultuous throng,
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> To cut across the reflex of a star
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> That fled, and, flying still before me, gleamed
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> Upon the glassy plain.