William Wordsworth

Quotes

1. 'Tis told by one whom stormy waters threw,

   With fellow-sufferers by the shipwreck spared,

   Upon a desert coast, that having brought

   To land a single volume, saved by chance,

   A treatise of Geometry.

2. 

   Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows

   Like harmony in music; there is a dark

   Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles

   Discordant elements, makes them cling together

   In one society.

3. 

   Another morn

   Risen on mid-noon.

4. 

   A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.

5. 

   How men lived

   Even next-door neighbours, as we say, yet still

   Strangers, not knowing each the other's name.

6. 

   Here must thou be, O Man!

   Power to thyself; no Helper hast thou here;

   Here keepest thou in singleness thy state:

   No other can divide with thee this work:

   No secondary hand can intervene

   To fashion this ability; 'tis thine,

   The prime and vital principle is thine

   In the recesses of thy nature, far

   From any reach of outward fellowship,

   Else is not thine at all.

7. 

   Oh! give us once again the wishing cap

   Of Fortunatus, and the invisible coat

   Of Jack the Giant-killer, Robin Hood,

   And Sabra in the forest with St. George!

   The child, whose love is here, at least, doth reap

   One precious gain, that he forgets himself.

8. 

   Frank-hearted maids of rocky Cumberland.

   p. 100

9. 

   Oh, blank confusion! true epitome

   Of what the mighty City is herself,

   To thousands upon thousands of her sons,

   Living amid the same perpetual whirl

   Of trivial objects, melted and reduced

   To one identity, by differences

   That have no law, no meaning, and no end—

   Oppression, under which even highest minds

   Must labour, whence the strongest are not free.

10. 

    Many are our joys

    In youth, but oh! what happiness to live

    When every hour brings palpable access

    Of knowledge, when all knowledge is delight,

    And sorrow is not there!

11. 

    The grim shape

    Towered up between me and the stars, and still,

    For so it seemed, with purpose of its own

    And measured motion like a living thing,

    Strode after me.

12. 

    There is

    One great society alone on earth:

    The noble Living and the noble Dead.