The Prelude, Or, Growth of a Poet's Mind: An Autobiographical PoemD. Appleton, 1850 - 374 pages |
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Alps amid Babes in arms beauty beheld beneath BOOK breathe Buttermere calm clouds cottage creature dark dear delight doth dream dromedary earth EDWARD MOXON eyes faith fancy fear feel felt flowers flowery field France Friend gleam glory Goslar groves happiness hath haunts heard heart heaven Helvellyn hills honour hope hour human immortal verse Jack the Giant-killer kindred labour less liberty light living living mind look mighty mind mountain mused Nature Nature's night o'er once passed passion peace pinnace plain pleased pleasure Robespierre rocks rose round sate scene seemed sense shade shape side sight silent solitude song sorrow soul sound speak spirit stars stood stream strong sublime summer sweet thee things thou thoughts touch trees truth turned Twas Vale verse voice walks wandering Whate'er whence wild WILLIAM WORDSWORTH wind Windermere woods words youth
Popular passages
Page 99 - Ah! need I say, dear Friend, that to the brim My heart was full; I made no vows, but vows Were then made for me; bond unknown to me Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly, A dedicated Spirit.
Page vi - Recluse ; as having for its principal subject the sensations and opinions of a poet living in retirement.
Page 21 - And not a voice was idle ; with the din Smitten, the precipices rang aloud ; The leafless trees and every icy crag Tinkled like iron ; while far distant hills Into the tumult sent an alien sound Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west The orange sky of evening died away.
Page 20 - Wisdom and Spirit of the universe! Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought, That givest to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion, not in vain By day or star-light thus from my first dawn Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me The passions that build up our human soul ; Not with the mean and vulgar works of man, But with high objects, with enduring things — With life and nature, purifying thus 410 The elements of feeling and of thought, And sanctifying, by such discipline, Both...
Page 356 - Reflected, it appeared to me the type Of a majestic intellect, its acts And its possessions, what it has and craves, What in itself it is, and would become. There I beheld the emblem of a mind 70 That feeds upon infinity, that broods Over the dark abyss...
Page v - Several years ago, when the Author retired to his native Mountains, with the hope of being enabled to construct a literary Work that might live, it was a reasonable thing that he should take a review of his own Mind, and examine how far Nature and Education had qualified him for such employment.
Page 324 - Birds in the bower, and lambs in the green field, Could they have known her, would have loved ; methought Her very presence such a sweetness breathed, That flowers, and trees, and even the silent hills, And everything she looked on, should have had An intimation how she bore herself Towards them and to all creatures.* God delights In such a being ; for, her common thoughts Are piety, her life is gratitude.
Page 122 - There was a Boy : ye knew him well, ye cliffs And islands of Winander ! — many a time At evening, when the earliest stars began To move along the edges of the hills...
Page 149 - But Europe at that time was thrilled with joy, France standing on the top of golden hours, And human nature seeming born again.
Page 14 - Was it for this That one, the fairest of all rivers, loved To blend his murmurs with my nurse's song, And, from his alder shades and rocky falls, And from his fords and shallows, sent a voice That flowed along my dreams...