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William Wordsworth Quotes
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William Wordsworth was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads .

Wordsworth's magnum opus is generally considered to be The Prelude, a semi-autobiographical poem of his early years that he revised and expanded a number of times. It was posthumously titled and published by his wife in the year of his death, before which it was generally known as "the poem to Coleridge". Wordsworth was Britain's poet laureate from 1843 until his death from pleurisy on 23 April 1850. Wikipedia  

✵ 7. April 1770 – 23. April 1850  •  Other names Уильям Вордсворт, ویلیام وردزورث
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William Wordsworth: 306 quotes36 likes

William Wordsworth Quotes

“Sweetest melodies
Are those that are by distance made more sweet.”

William Wordsworth

Personal Talk, Stanza 2.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

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

William Wordsworth

To the Cuckoo, st. 4 (1804).

“The gentle Lady married to the Moor,
And heavenly Una with her milk-white lamb.”

William Wordsworth

Personal Talk, Stanza 3.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all Science.”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

Preface.
Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800)

“Bright gem instinct with music, vocal spark.”

William Wordsworth

A Morning Exercise.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Thou has left behind
Powers that will work for thee,—air, earth, and skies!
There 's not a breathing of the common wind
That will forget thee; thou hast great allies;
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and man's unconquerable mind.”

William Wordsworth

To Toussaint L'Ouverture, l. 12 (1807).

“Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

Source: Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800), Lines Written in Early Spring, st. 6 (1798).

“Earth helped him with the cry of blood.”

William Wordsworth

Song at the Feast of Broughton Castle.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“There's something in a flying horse,
There's something in a huge balloon;
But through the clouds I'll never float
Until I have a little Boat,
Shaped like the crescent-moon.”

William Wordsworth Peter Bell

Prologue, stanza 1.
Peter Bell (1798)

“Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade
Of that which once was great, is passed away.”

William Wordsworth

On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic, l. 13 (1807).

“Lives there a man whose sole delights
Are trivial pomp and city noise,
Hardening a heart that loathes or slights
What every natural heart enjoys?”

William Wordsworth

To the Lady Fleming, st. 6 (1823).

“Let beeves and home-bred kine partake
The sweets of Burn-mill meadow;
The swan on still St. Mary's Lake
Float double, swan and shadow!”

William Wordsworth

Yarrow Unvisited.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

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

William Wordsworth

Part III, No. 7 - Persecution of the Scottish Covenanters.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets (1821)

“Once did She hold the gorgeous east in fee;
And was the safeguard of the west: the worth
Of Venice did not fall below her birth,
Venice, the eldest Child of Liberty.”

William Wordsworth

On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic, l. 1 (1807).

“A fingering slave,
One that would peep and botanize
Upon his mother's grave.”

William Wordsworth

Stanza 5.
A Poet's Epitaph (1799)

“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.”

William Wordsworth

To the Daisy (third poem), st. 1 (1803).

“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!”

William Wordsworth

Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1802, l. 11 (1802).

“A happy youth, and their old age
Is beautiful and free.”

William Wordsworth

The Fountain, st. ?? (1799).
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Sweet Mercy! to the gates of Heaven
This minstrel lead, his sins forgiven;
The rueful conflict, the heart riven
With vain endeavour,
And memory of earth's bitter leaven
Effaced forever.”

William Wordsworth

Thoughts Suggested on the Banks of the Nith, st. 10.
Memorials of a Tour in Scotland (1803)

“A power is passing from the earth.”

William Wordsworth

Source: Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Lines on the expected Dissolution of Mr. Fox.

“Who he was
That piled these stones, and with the mossy sod
First covered, and here taught this aged Tree
With its dark arms to form a circling bower,
I well remember.—He was one who owned
No common soul. In youth by science nursed.
And led by nature into a wild scene
Of lofty hopes, he to the world went forth
A favoured Being, knowing no desire
Which genius did not hallow; 'gainst the taint
Of dissolute tongues, and jealousy, and hate,
And scorn,—against all enemies prepared,
All but neglect. The world, for so it thought,
Owed him no service; wherefore he at once
With indignation turned himself away,
And with the food of pride sustained his soul
In solitude.”

William Wordsworth

Lines (1795)

“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?”

William Wordsworth

Stanza 6.
Resolution and Independence (1807)

“I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds
With coldness still returning;
Alas! the gratitude of men
Hath oftener left me mourning.”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

Simon Lee, st. 12 (1798).
Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800)

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

William Wordsworth The Sparrow's Nest

The Sparrow's Nest, st. 1 (1801).

“Happier of happy though I be, like them
I cannot take possession of the sky,
Mount with a thoughtless impulse, and wheel there
One of a mighty multitude whose way
Is a perpetual harmony and dance
Magnificent.”

William Wordsworth The Recluse

The Recluse, l. 198 (1805).

“Never to blend our pleasure or our pride
With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.”

William Wordsworth

Hart-leap Well, part ii.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Small service is true service while it lasts.
Of humblest friends, bright creature! scorn not one:
The daisy, by the shadow that it casts,
Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun.”

William Wordsworth

To a Child. Written in her Album (1834).

“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.”

William Wordsworth

Part II, No. 17 - Wicliffe. In obedience to the order of the Council of Constance (1415), the remains of Wickliffe were exhumed and burned to ashes, and these cast into the Swift, a neighbouring brook running hard by; and "thus this brook hath conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wickliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over", Thomas Fuller, Church History, section ii, book iv, paragraph 53; Compare also: "What Heraclitus would not laugh, or what Democritus would not weep?… For though they digged up his body, burned his bones, and drowned his ashes, yet the word of God and truth of his doctrine, with the fruit and success thereof, they could not burn", Fox, Book of Martyrs, vol. i. p. 606 (edition, 1611); "Some prophet of that day said,—
"'The Avon to the Severn runs, / The Severn to the sea; / And Wickliffe's dust shall spread abroad / Wide as the waters be'", Daniel Webster, Address before the Sons of New Hampshire (1849), and similarly quoted by the Rev. John Cumming in the Voices of the Dead.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets (1821)

“A Creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.”

William Wordsworth

Stanza 2. <br class="br"> She Was a Phantom of Delight http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww259.html (1804)

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

William Wordsworth

Source: Character of the Happy Warrior http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww302.html (1806), Line 12.

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

William Wordsworth

To the Small Celandine.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Like—but oh, how different!”

William Wordsworth

Yes, It Was the Mountain Echo, st. 2 (1806).

“The budding rose above the rose full blown.”

William Wordsworth book The Prelude

Bk. XI, l. 121.
The Prelude (1799-1805)

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

William Wordsworth

Part III, No. 43 - Inside of King's College Chapel, Cambridge.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets (1821)

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

William Wordsworth

Part III, No. 43 - Inside of King's College Chapel, Cambridge.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets (1821)

“Every great and original writer, in proportion as he is great and original, must himself create the taste by which he is to be relished.”

William Wordsworth

Letter to Lady Beaumont (May 21, 1807).

“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.”

William Wordsworth The Sparrow's Nest

The Sparrow's Nest, st. 2 (1801).

“A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal (1799).
Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800)

“Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart:
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness.”

William Wordsworth

London, 1802, l. 9 (1807).

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

William Wordsworth

Stanza 11.
Resolution and Independence (1807)

“But he is risen, a later star of dawn.”

William Wordsworth

A Morning Exercise.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Love had he found in huts where poor men lie;
His daily teachers had been woods and rills,
The silence that is in the starry sky,
The sleep that is among the lonely hills.”

William Wordsworth

Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle, l. 161 (1807).

“Turning, for them who pass, the common dust
Of servile opportunity to gold.”

William Wordsworth

Desultory Stanza.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

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

William Wordsworth

Stanza 3. <br class="br"> I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww260.html (1804)

“Every gift of noble origin
Is breathed upon by Hope’s perpetual breath.”

William Wordsworth

These Times strike Monied Worldlings.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Variant: Every gift of noble origin
Is breathed upon by Hope’s perpetual breath.

“Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year;
And worship'st at the Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.”

William Wordsworth

It Is a Beautious Evening, l. 12 (1807).

“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.”

William Wordsworth

To a Butterfly (Stay Near Me), st. 1 (1801).

“But shapes that come not at an earthly call,
Will not depart when mortal voices bid.”

William Wordsworth

Dion, st. 5 (1814).

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

William Wordsworth

Source: Character of the Happy Warrior http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww302.html (1806), Line 1.

“How fast has brother followed brother,
From sunshine to the sunless land!”

William Wordsworth

Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)