“In truth the prison, unto which we doom
Ourselves, no prison is.”
Nuns Fret Not, l. 8 (1806).
“In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.”
Source: Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800), Lines Written in Early Spring, st. 1 (1798).
Cancelled lines originally in the second stanza of Louisa (1805).
“And stepping westward seemed to be
A kind of heavenly destiny.”
Stepping Westward, st. 2.
Memorials of a Tour in Scotland (1803)
Yarrow Unvisited, st. 1.
Memorials of a Tour in Scotland (1803)
Stanza 8.
Ode to Duty http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww271.html (1805)
“We meet thee, like a pleasant thought,
When such are wanted.”
To the Daisy.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on,
Through words and things, a dim and perilous way.”
The Borderers Act iv. Sc. 2.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“Soft is the music that would charm forever;
The flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly.”
Not Love, not War.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Variant: The flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly.
“The Eagle, he was lord above,
And Rob was lord below.”
Rob Roy's Grave, st. 14.
Memorials of a Tour in Scotland (1803)
The Recluse, l. 401 (1805).
“Men who can hear the Decalogue, and feel
To self-reproach.”
The Old Cumberland Beggar.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Stanza 3.
Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800), Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey (1798)
Bk. III, l. 60.
The Prelude (1799-1805)
“Something between a hindrance and a help.”
Michael. A Pastoral Poem, l. 189 (1800).
Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800)
“The best of what we do and are,
Just God, forgive!”
Thoughts suggested on the Banks of the Nith.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“What we need is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is its exact opposite.”
This was not Wordsworth's viewpoint at all. The words are in fact those of Bertrand Russell in his Sceptical Essays (1928), p. 157.
Misattributed
“Fair seedtime had my soul, and I grew up
Fostered alike by beauty and by fear.”
Bk. I, l. 301.
The Prelude (1799-1805)