All Quotes

"How blessings brighten as they take their flight!"

"Life's cares are comforts; such by Heav'n design'd; He that hath none must make them, or be wretched."

"Pictures deface walls more often than they decorate them."

"We take no note of time but from its loss."

"What we need is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is its exact opposite."

"If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility."

"My poetry has a haunted sense to it and it has a sorrow and a grievingness in it that comes directly from being split, not in two but in twenty, and never being able to reconcile all the places that I am. I think of it as Wordsworth did when he said we come into this world "trailing clouds of glory," when he said nothing can bring back the hour when we saw "splendor in the grass and glory in the flower." We shall not weep but find strength in what remains behind. That poem-I was in college, I was a sophomore when I read it, and I just wept. I was completely, absolutely desolate because I thought he understood. He understood, of course, in his own way exactly what happens when your reality is so disordered that you can't ever make it whole, but you have the knowledge of what has happened, what has been done."

"I firmly believe that the poetical performance of Wordsworth is, after that of Shakspeare and Milton, of which all the world now recognises the worth, undoubtedly the most considerable in our language from the Elizabethan age to the present time. Chaucer is anterior; and on other grounds, too, he cannot well be brought into the comparison. But taking the roll of our chief poetical names, besides Shakspeare and Milton, from the age of Elizabeth downwards, and going through it,—Spenser, Dryden, Pope, Gray, Goldsmith, Cowper, Burns, Coleridge, Scott, Campbell, Moore, Byron, Shelley, Keats (I mention those only who are dead),—I think it certain that Wordsworth's name deserves to stand, and will finally stand, above them all. Several of the poets named have gifts and excellences which Wordsworth has not. But taking the performance of each as a whole, I say that Wordsworth seems to me to have left a body of poetical work superior in power, in interest, in the qualities which give enduring freshness, to that which any one of the others has left."

"I think it certain, further, that if we take the chief poetical names of the Continent since the death of Molière, and, omitting Goethe, confront the remaining names with that of Wordsworth, the result is the same. Let us take Klopstock, Lessing, Schiller, Uhland, Rückert, and Heine for Germany; Filicaia, Alfieri, Manzoni, and Leopardi for Italy; Racine, Boileau, Voltaire, André Chénier, Béranger, Lamartine, Musset, M. Victor Hugo...for France. Several of these, again, have evidently gifts and excellences to which Wordsworth can make no pretension. But in real poetical achievement it seems to me indubitable that to Wordsworth, here again, belongs the palm. It seems to me that Wordsworth has left behind him a body of poetical work which wears, and will wear, better on the whole than the performance of any one of these personages, so far more brilliant and celebrated, most of them, than the homely poet of Rydal. Wordsworth's performance in poetry is on the whole, in power, in interest, in the qualities which give enduring freshness, superior to theirs."

"They rowed her in across the rolling foam, The cruel crawling foam, The cruel hungry foam, To her grave beside the sea: But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home Across the sands of Dee."

"The Excursion and the Prelude, his poems of greatest bulk, are by no means Wordsworth's best work. His best work is in his shorter pieces, and many indeed are there of these which are of first-rate excellence. But in his seven volumes the pieces of high merit are mingled with a mass of pieces very inferior to them; so inferior to them that it seems wonderful how the same poet should have produced both... Wordsworth composed verses during a space of some sixty years; and it is no exaggeration to say that within one single decade of those years, between 1798 and 1808, almost all his really first-rate work was produced. A mass of inferior work remains, work done before and after this golden prime, imbedding the first-rate work and clogging it, obstructing our approach to it, chilling, not unfrequently, the high-wrought mood with which we leave it."

"Nature herself seems, I say, to take the pen out of his hand, and to write for him with her own bare, sheer, penetrating power. This arises from two causes: from the profound sincereness with which Wordsworth feels his subject, and also from the profoundly sincere and natural character of his subject itself. He can and will treat such a subject with nothing but the most plain, first-hand, almost austere naturalness. His expression may often be called bald, as, for instance, in the poem of Resolution and Independence; but it is bald as the bare mountain tops are bald, with a baldness which is full of grandeur. Wherever we meet with the successful balance, in Wordsworth, of profound truth of subject with profound truth of execution, he is unique. His best poems are those which most perfectly exhibit this balance... If I had to pick out poems of a kind most perfectly to show Wordsworth's unique power, I should rather choose poems such as Michael, The Fountain, The Highland Reaper."

"Dante, Shakspeare, Molière, Milton, Goethe, are altogether larger and more splendid luminaries in the poetical heaven than Wordsworth. But I know not where else, among the moderns, we are to find his superiors."

"Just for a handful of silver he left us, Just for a riband to stick in his coat."

"The languid way in which he gives you a handful of numb unresponsive fingers is very significant. It seems also rather to grieve him that you have any admiration for anybody but him. No man that I ever met has give me less, has disappointed me less. My peace be with him, and a happy evening to his, on the whole, respectable life."

"For Wordsworth, as for Burke, local attachment is "the tap-root of the tree of Patriotism". That was particularly true of the part of England from which Wordsworth himself came—the dales of Cumberland and Westmorland, with their tiny scattered communities of "statesmen" as they were called, small independent owner-farmers, soon, alas, to be driven out of existence as such by the increasing prosperity of the country. "Neither high-born nobleman, knight, nor esquire, was here; but many of these humble sons of the hills had a consciousness that the land, which they walked over and tilled, had for more than five hundred years been possessed by men of their name and blood." This is the environment out of which Wordsworth's political theory springs; and along with local patriotism it taught him the meaning of tradition in a nation's life. He draws his conclusions in phrases that wonderfully, and surely not accidentally, echo Burke. "There is a spiritual community binding together the living and the dead, the good, the brave, and the wise, of all ages." To Wordsworth, as to Burke, tradition is essential to a nation. How well he knew "the solemn fraternity which a great Nation composes—gathered together, in a stormy season, under the shade of ancestral feeling". He cries, as the shadow of Napoleon looms over his mind, "Perdition to the Tyrant who would wantonly cut off an independent nation from its inheritance in past ages"."

"He lived amidst th'untrodden ways To Rydal Lake that lead:- A bard whom there were none to praise, And very few to read.Behind a cloud his mystic sense, Deep-hidden, who can spy? Bright as the night, when not a star Is shining in the sky.Unread his works – his "Milk-white Doe" With dust is dark and dim; It's still in Longman's shop, and Oh! The difference to him!"

"Nothing struck me so much in Wordsworth's conversation as his remark concerning Chartism—after the subject of my imprisonment had been touched upon. "You were right," he said; "I have always said the people were right in what they asked; but you went the wrong way to get it." I almost doubted my ears—being in the presence of the "Tory" Wordsworth. He read the inquiring expression of my look in a moment,—and immediately repeated what he had said. "You were quite right: there is nothing unreasonable in your Charter: it is the foolish attempt at physical force, for which many of you have been blamable." I had heard that Wordsworth was vain and egotistical, but had always thought this very unlikely to be true, in one whose poetry is so profoundly reflective; and I now felt astonished that these reports should ever have been circulated. To me, he was all kindness and goodness; while the dignity with which he uttered every sentence seemed natural in a man whose grand head and face, if one had never known of his poetry, would have proclaimed his intellectual superiority."

"I am pleased to find," he said, while we were talking about Byron, "that you preserve your muse chaste, and free from rank and corrupt passion. Lord Byron degraded poetry in that respect. Men's hearts are bad enough. Poetry should refine and purify their natures; not make them worse." I ventured the plea that Don Juan was descriptive, and that Shakspeare had also described bad passions in anatomising the human heart, which was one of the great vocations of the poet. "But there is always a moral lesson," he replied quickly, "in Shakspeare's pictures. You feel he is not stirring man's passions for the sake of awakening the brute in them: the pure and the virtuous are always presented in high contrast; but the other riots in corrupt pictures, evidently with the enjoyment of the corruption."

"I left him with a more intense feeling of having been in the presence of a good and great intelligence, than I had ever felt in any other moments of my life."

"No bird, but an invisible thing, A voice, a mystery."

"What is pride? A whizzing rocket That would emulate a star."

"I travelled among unknown men, In lands beyond the sea; Nor, England! did I know till then What love I bore to thee."

"Much converse do I find in thee, Historian of my infancy! Float near me; do not yet depart! Dead times revive in thee: Thou bring'st, gay creature as thou art! A solemn image to my heart."

"Behold, within the leafy shade, Those bright blue eggs together laid! On me the chance-discovered sight Gleamed like a vision of delight."

"She gave me eyes, she gave me ears; And humble cares,and delicate fears; A heart, the fountain of sweet tears; And love, and thought, and joy."

"Sweet childish days, that were as long As twenty days are now."

"Like an army defeated The snow hath retreated, And now doth fare ill On the top of the bare hill; The Ploughboy is whooping—anon—anon! There's joy in the mountains: There's life in the fountains; Small clouds are sailing, Blue sky prevailing; The rain is over and gone."

"My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die! The Child is father of the Man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety."

"Earth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie Open unto the fields and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air."

"Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!"

"Rapine, avarice, expense This is idolatry; and these we adore: Plain living and high thinking are no more: The homely beauty of the good old cause Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence, And pure religion breathing household laws."

"O for a single hour of that Dundee, Who on that day the word of onset gave!"

"Pleasures newly found are sweet When they lie about our feet."

"Every gift of noble origin Is breathed upon by Hope's perpetual breath."

"Hail to thee, far above the rest In joy of voice and pinion! Thou, linnet! in thy green array, Presiding spirit here to-day, Dost lead the revels of the May; And this is thy dominion."

"There is a Yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale, Which to this day stands single, in the midst Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore."

"Of vast circumference and gloom profound, This solitary Tree! A living thing Produced too slowly ever to decay; Of form and aspect too magnificent To be destroyed."

"Bright flower! whose home is everywhere Bold in maternal nature's care And all the long year through the heir Of joy or sorrow, Methinks that there abides in thee Some concord with humanity, Given to no other flower I see The forest through."

"O Blithe newcomer! I have heard, I hear thee and rejoice. O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird, Or but a wandering Voice?"

"Thou unassuming Common-place Of Nature, with that homely face, And yet with something of a grace, Which Love makes for thee!"

"Oft on the dappled turf at ease I sit, and play with similes, Loose types of things through all degrees."

"The light that never was, on sea or land, The consecration, and the poet's dream."

"Dear Child of Nature, let them rail!"

"Thou, while thy babes around thee cling, Shalt show us how divine a thing A Woman may be made."

"But an old age serene and bright, And lovely as a Lapland night, Shall lead thee to thy grave."

"She hath smiles to earth unknown— Smiles that with motion of their own Do spread, and sink, and rise."

"Like—but oh, how different!"

"In truth the prison, unto which we doom Ourselves, no prison is."

"The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!"