Dorothy Wordsworth

Dorothy Wordsworth Poems

Dorothy Wordsworth Biography

Dorothy Mae Ann Wordsworth (25 December 1771 – 25 January 1855) was an English author, poet and diarist. She was the sister of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth, and the two were close for all of their lives. Dorothy did not set out to be an author, and her writings comprise only of a series of letters, diary entries and short stories. She was born on Christmas Day in Cockermouth, Cumberland in 1771. Despite the early death of her mother, Dorothy, William and their three siblings had a happy childhood. In 1783 their father died, and the children were sent to live with various relatives. Dorothy was sent alone to live with her aunt Elizabeth Threlkeld in Halifax, West Yorkshire. After she was able to reunite with William firstly at Racedown Lodge in Dorset in 1795 and afterwards (1797/98)at Alfoxton House in Somerset, they became inseparable companions. The pair lived in poverty at first; and would often beg for cast-off clothes from their friends. William wrote of her in his famous Tintern Abbey poem: Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend, My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch The language of my former heart, and read My former pleasures in the shooting lights Of thy wild eyes [...] My dear, dear Sister! Dorothy was a diarist and poet but had little interest in becoming a famous writer like her brother. "I should detest the idea of setting myself up as an author," she once wrote, "give Wm. the Pleasure of it."[3] She almost published her travel account with William to Scotland in 1803 Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland, but a publisher was not found and it would not be published until 1874. She never married, and after William married Mary Hutchinson in 1802, she continued to live with them. She was by now 31, and thought of herself as too old for marriage. In 1829 she fell seriously ill, and was to remain an invalid for the remainder of her life. She died at the age of eighty-three in 1855, having spent the past twenty years in, according to the biographer Richard Cavendish, "a deepening haze of senility". Dorothy's Grasmere Journal was first published in 1897, edited by William Knight. The journal eloquently described her day-to-day life in the Lake District, long walks she and her brother took through the countryside, and detailed portraits of literary lights of the early 19th century, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sir Walter Scott, Charles Lamb and Robert Southey, a close friend who popularised the fairytale Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Dorothy Wordsworth's works came to light just as literary critics were beginning to re-examine women's role in literature. The success of the Grasmere Journal led to a renewed interest in Wordsworth, and several other journals and collections of her letters have since been published. The Grasmere Journal and Wordsworth's other works revealed how vital she was to her brother's success. William relied on his sister's detailed accounts of nature scenes when writing poems and borrowed freely from her journals.)

The Best Poem Of Dorothy Wordsworth

Grasmere - A Fragment

Peaceful our valley, fair and green,
And beautiful her cottages,
Each in its nook, its sheltered hold,
Or underneath its tuft of trees.
Many and beautiful they are;
But there is one that I love best,
A lowly shed, in truth, it is,
A brother of the rest.
Yet when I sit on rock or hill,
Down looking on the valley fair,
That Cottage with its clustering trees
Summons my heart; it settles there.
Others there are whose small domain
Of fertile fields and hedgerows green
Might more seduce a wanderer's mind
To wish that there his home had been.
Such wish be his! I blame him not,
My fancies they perchance are wild
--I love that house because it is
The very Mountains' child.
Fields hath it of its own, green fields,
But they are rocky steep and bare;
Their fence is of the mountain stone,
And moss and lichen flourish there.
And when the storm comes from the North
It lingers near that pastoral spot,
And, piping through the mossy walls,
It seems delighted with its lot.
And let it take its own delight;
And let it range the pastures bare;
Until it reach that group of trees,
--It may not enter there!
A green unfading grove it is,
Skirted with many a lesser tree,
Hazel and holly, beech and oak,
A bright and flourishing company.
Precious the shelter of those trees;
They screen the cottage that I love;
The sunshine pierces to the roof,
And the tall pine-trees tower above.
When first I saw that dear abode,
It was a lovely winter's day:
After a night of perilous storm
The west wind ruled with gentle sway;
A day so mild, it might have been
The first day of the gladsome spring;
The robins warbled, and I heard
One solitary throstle sing.
A Stranger, Grasmere, in thy Vale,
All faces then to me unknown,
I left my sole companion-friend
To wander out alone.
Lured by a little winding path,
I quitted soon the public road,
A smooth and tempting path it was,
By sheep and shepherds trod.
Eastward, toward the lofty hills,
This pathway led me on
Until I reached a stately Rock,
With velvet moss o'ergrown.
With russet oak and tufts of fern
Its top was richly garlanded;
Its sides adorned with eglantine
Bedropp'd with hips of glossy red.
There, too, in many a sheltered chink
The foxglove's broad leaves flourished fair,
And silver birch whose purple twigs
Bend to the softest breathing air.
Beneath that Rock my course I stayed,
And, looking to its summit high,
'Thou wear'st,' said I, 'a splendid garb,
Here winter keeps his revelry.
'Full long a dweller on the Plains,
I griev'd when summer days were gone;
No more I'll grieve; for Winter here
Hath pleasure gardens of his own.
'What need of flowers? The splendid moss
Is gayer than an April mead;
More rich its hues of various green,
Orange, and gold, & glittering red.'
--Beside that gay and lovely Rock
There came with merry voice
A foaming streamlet glancing by;
It seemed to say 'Rejoice!'
My youthful wishes all fulfill'd,
Wishes matured by thoughtful choice,
I stood an Inmate of this vale
How could I but rejoice?

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