William Wordsworth

"A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company."

"That inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude."

"Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!"

"A light to guide, a rod To check the erring, and reprove."

"Me this unchartered freedom tires; I feel the weight of chance-desires: My hopes no more must change their name, I long for a repose that ever is the same."

"Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong."

"Give unto me, made lowly wise, The spirit of self-sacrifice; The confidence of reason give, And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live!"

"Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he That every man in arms should wish to be?"

"Who, doomed to go in company with Pain, And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train! Turns his necessity to glorious gain."

"Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves Of their bad influence, and their good receives."

"More skillful in self-knowledge, even more pure, As tempted more; more able to endure, As more exposed to suffering and distress."

"But who, if he be called upon to face Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined Great issues, good or bad for human kind, Is happy as a Lover."

"And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw."

"Whom neither shape of danger can dismay, Nor thought of tender happiness betray."

"As high as we have mounted in delight, In our dejection do we sink as low."

"But how can he expect that others should Build for him, sow for him, and at his call Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all?"

"I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy, The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride; Of Him who walked in glory and in joy Following his plough, along the mountain-side: By our own spirits are we deified: We Poets in our youth begin in gladness; But thereof come in the end despondency and madness."

"That heareth not the loud winds when they call, And moveth all together, if it moves at all."

"Choice word and measured phrase, above the reach Of ordinary men."

"And mighty poets in their misery dead."

"For the gods approve The depth, and not the tumult, of the soul."

"Mightier far Than strength of nerve or sinew, or the sway Of magic potent over sun and star, Is Love, though oft to agony distrest, And though his favorite seat be feeble woman's breast."

"Elysian beauty, melancholy grace, Brought from a pensive though a happy place."

"He spake of love, such love as spirits feel In worlds whose course is equable and pure; No fears to beat away, no strife to heal,— The past unsighed for, and the future sure."

"Of all that is most beauteous, imaged there In happier beauty; more pellucid streams, An ampler ether, a diviner air, And fields invested with purpureal gleams."

"Yet tears to human suffering are due; And mortal hopes defeated and o'erthrown Are mourned by man, and not by man alone."

"Babylon, Learned and wise, hath perished utterly, Nor leaves her speech one word to aid the sigh That would lament her."

"As thou these ashes, little brook! will bear Into the Avon, Avon to the tide Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas, Into main ocean they, this deed accurst, An emblem yields to friends and enemies How the bold teacher's doctrine, sanctified By truth, shall spread throughout the world dispersed."

"Habit rules the unreflecting herd."

"The feather, whence the pen Was shaped that traced the lives of these good men, Dropped from an Angel's wing."

"Meek Walton's heavenly memory."

"But who would force the soul tilts with a straw Against a champion cased in adamant."

"Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore Of nicely calculated less or more."

"Where music dwells Lingering and wandering on as loth to die, Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof That they were born for immortality."

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

"In years that bring the philosophic mind."

"To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

"Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on, Through words and things, a dim and perilous way."

"And 't is my faith, that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes."

"Up! up! my friend, and quit your books, Or surely you 'll grow double! Up! up! my friend, and clear your looks! Why all this toil and trouble?"

"The bane of all that dread the Devil."

"The fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world Have hung upon the beatings of my heart."

"Men who can hear the Decalogue, and feel To self-reproach."

"As in the eye of Nature he has lived, So in the eye of Nature let him die!"

"Full twenty times was Peter feared, For once that Peter was respected."

"One of those heavenly days that cannot die."

"A violet by a mossy stone Half hidden from the eye; Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky."

"The stars of midnight shall be dear To her; and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place Where rivulets dance their wayward round, And beauty born of murmuring sound Shall pass into her face."

"The cattle are grazing, Their heads never raising; There are forty feeding like one!"

"Often have I sighed to measure By myself a lonely pleasure,— Sighed to think I read a book, Only read, perhaps, by me."