William Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads

William Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads 1798, from Wordsworth and Coleridge Lyrical Ballads, Routledge Classics, London 2005

It is an ancient Marienere,
And he stoppeth one of three:
“By thy long grey beard and thy glittering eye
“Now wherefore stoppest me?

(opening, The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere, 50)


Listen, Stranger! Storm and Wind,
A Wind and Tempest strong!
For days and weeks it play’d us freaks—
Like Chaff we drove along.

(The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere, 53)


And I had done an hellish thing
And it would work ’em woe:
For all averr’d, I had kill’d the Bird
That made the Breeze to blow.

(The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere, 55)


Water, water, every where
And all the board did shrink;
Water, water, every where
Ne any drop to drink.

The very deeps did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy Sea.

About, about, in reel and rout
The Death-fires danc’d at night;
The water, like a witch’s oils,
Burt green and blue and white.

(The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere, 56)


The many men so beautiful,
And they all dead did like!
And a million million slimy things
Liv’d on—and so did I.

I look’d upon the rotting Sea,
And drew my eyes away;
I look’d upon the eldritch deck,
And there the dead men lay.

(The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere, 62)


My husband’s father told it me,
Poor old Leoni!—Angels rest his soul!
He was a woodman, and could fell and saw
With lusty arm. …

(The Foster-Mother’s Tale, 79)


…these gloomy boughs
Had charms for him; and here he loved to sit,
His only visitants a straggling sheep,
The stone-chat, or the glancing sheep,
The stone-chat, or the glancing sand-piper;
And on these barren rocks, with juniper,
And heath, and thistle, thinly sprinkled o’er,
Fixing his downward eye, he many an hour
A morbid pleasure nourished, tracing here
An emblem of his own unfruitful life:

(Lines Left Upon a Seat in a Yew-Tree, 83)


By Derwent’s side my Father’s cottage stood,
(The Woman thus her artless story told)
One field, a flock, and what the neighbouring flood
Supplied, to his were more than mines of gold.
Light was my sleep; my days in transport roll’d:
With thoughtless joy I stretch’d along the shore
My father’s nets, …

(The Female Vagrant, 88)


The staff I yet remember which upbore
The bending body of my active sire;
His seat beneath the honeyed sycamore
When the bees hummed,…

(The Female Vagrant, 89)


All, all was seized, and weeping, side by side,
We sought a home where we uninjured might abide.
/
Can I forget that miserable hour,
When from the last hill-top, my sire surveyed,
Peering above the trees, the steeple tower,
That on his marriage-day sweet music made?
Till then he hoped his bones might there be laid,
Close by my mother in their native bowers:

(The Female Vagrant, 90)


There foul neglect for months and months we bore,

(The Female Vagrant, 92)


But from these crazing thoughts my brain, escape!

(The Female Vagrant, 94)


How dismal tolled, that night, the city clock!
At more my sick heart hunger scarcely stung,
Nor to the beggar’s language could I frame my tongue.
/
So passed another day, and so the third:

(The Female Vagrant, 96)


But, what afflicts my peace with keenest ruth
Is, that I have my inner self abused,
Foregone the home delight of constant truth,
And clear and open soul, so prized in fearless youth.

(The Female Vagrant, 98)


Oh! what’s the matter? what’s the matter?
What is’t that ails young Harry Gill?
That evermore his teeth they chatter,
Chatter, chatter, chatter still.
Of waistcoasts Harry has no lack,
Good duffle grey, and flannel fine;
He has a blanket on his back,
And coats enough to smother nine.

(Goody Blake, and Harry Gill, 99)


Old Ruth works out of doors with him,
And does what Simon cannot do;
For she, not over stout of limb,
Is stouter of the two.

(Simon Lee, 106)


At this, my boy, so fair and slim,
Hung down his head, nor made reply;
And five times did I say to him,
“Why? Edward, tell me why?”
/
His head he raised—there was in sight,
It caught his eye, he saw it plain—
Upon the house-top, glittering bright,
A broad and gilded vane.
/
Then did the boy his tongue unlock,
And thus to me he made his reply;
“At Kilve there was no weather-cock,
“And that’s the reason why.”

(Anecdote for Fathers, 110)


And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.
/
The birds around me hopp’d and play’d:
Their thoughts I cannot measure,
But the least motion which they made,
It seem’d a thrill of pleasure.

(Lines; written in early spring, 113)


And all that winter, when at night
The wind blew from the mountain-peak,
’Twas worth your while, though in the dark,
The church-yard path to seek:
For many a time and oft were heard
Cries coming from the mountain-head,
Some plainly living voices were,
And others, I’ve heard many swear,
Were voices of the dead:
I cannot think, whate’er they say,
They had to do with Martha Ray.

(The Thorn, 120)


When I was young, a single man,
And after youthful follies ran,
Though little given to care and thought,
Yet, so it was, a ewe I bought;

(The Last of the Flocks, 124)


She talked and sung the woods among;
And it was in the English tongue.

(The Mad Mother, 128)


Burr, burr—now Johnny’s lips they burr,
As loud as any mill, or near it,
Meek as a lamb and pony moves,
And Johnny makes the noise he loves,
And Betty listens, glad to hear it.

(The Idiot Boy, 134)


Now Johnny all night long had heard
The owls in tuneful concert strive;
No doubt too he the moon had seen;
For in the moonlight he had been
From eight o’clock till five.
/
And thus to Betty’s question, he
Made answer, like a traveler bold,
(His very words I give to you,)
“The cocks did crow to-whoo, to-whoo,
“And the sun did shine so cold.”
—Thus answered Johnny in his glory,
And that was all his travel’s story.

(The Idiot Boy, 145)

Glide gently, thus for ever glide,
O Thames! that other bards may see,

(Lines; written near Richmond, upon the Thames, at Evening, 146)


“Why William, on that old grey stone,
“Thus for the length of half a day,
“Why William, sit you thus alone,
“And dream your time away?
/
“Where are your books? that light bequeath’d
“To beings else forlorn and blind!
“Up! Up! and drink the spirit breath’d
“From dead men to their kind.
/
“You look round on your mother earth,
“As if she for no purpose bore you;
“As if you were her first-born birth,
“And none had lived before you!
/
One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake,
When life was sweet I knew not why,
To me my good friend Matthew spake,
And thus I made reply.
/
“The eye it cannot chuse but see,
“We cannot bid the ear be still;
“Our bodies feel, where’er they be,
“Against, or with our will.
/
“Nor less I deem that there are powers,
“Which of themselves our minds impress,
“That we can feed this mind of ours,
“In a wise passiveness.
“Think you, mid all this mighty sum
“Of things for ever speaking,
“That nothing of itself will come,
“But we must still be seeking?

(Expostulation and Reply, 148)


Books! ’tis a dull and endless strife,
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music; on my life
There’s more of wisdom in it.
/
And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
And he is no mean preacher;
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.

(The Tables Turned, 149)


One impulse from a vernal word
May teach you more of man;
Of moral evil of good,
Than all the sages can.
/
Sweet is the lore which nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Misshapes the beauteous forms of things;
—We murder to dissect.

(The Tables Turned, 149)

’Tis sorrow enough on that visage to gaze,
That body dismiss’d from his care;
Yet my fancy has pierced to his heart, and pourtrays
More terrible images there.

(The Convict, 154)


Five years have passed; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur. —Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
Which on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

(Tintern Abbey, 156)


…these pastoral farms
Green to the very door, and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees,

(Tintern Abbey, 156)


…Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye and ear, both what they half-create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognize
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.

(Tintrn Abbey, 159)


…Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; …
…
…neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e’er prevail against us, …

(Tintern Abbey, 160)


…in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; Oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should by thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! …

(Tintern Abbey, 161)