William Wordsworth (1770-1850 / Cumberland / England)

poet William Wordsworth
#8 on top 500 poets

Quotations

  • ''What though the radiance which was once so bright
    Be now for ever taken from my sight,
    Though nothing can bring back the hour
    Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
    We will grieve not, rather find
    Strength in what remains behind.''
    William Wordsworth (1770-1850), British poet. Intimations of Immortality, l. 178-83, Poems in Two Volumes (1807). The source for the title of Elia Kazan's movie, Splendor in the Grass, which was released in 1961, based on the original screenplay by William Inge.
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  • ''O Reader! had you in your mind
    Such stores as silent thought can bring,
    O gentle Reader! you would find
    A tale in every thing.''
    William Wordsworth (1770-1850), British poet. Simon Lee (l. 65-68). . . The Poems; Vol. 1 [William Wordsworth]. John O. Hayden, ed. (1977, repr. 1990) Penguin Books.
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  • ''The thought of our past years in me doth breed
    Perpetual benedictions.''
    William Wordsworth (1770-1850), British poet. Intimations of Immortality.
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  • ''Surprised by joy—impatient as the wind''
    William Wordsworth (1770-1850), British poet. Surprised by Joy (l. 1). . . The Poems; Vol. 1 [William Wordsworth]. John O. Hayden, ed. (1977, repr. 1990) Penguin Books.
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  • ''The thought of our past years in me doth breed
    Perpetual benediction.''
    William Wordsworth (1770-1850), British poet. Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, l. 136-7, Poems in Two Volumes (1807).
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  • ''That neither present time, nor years unborn
    Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.''
    William Wordsworth (1770-1850), British poet. Surprised by Joy (l. 13-14). . . The Poems; Vol. 1 [William Wordsworth]. John O. Hayden, ed. (1977, repr. 1990) Penguin Books.
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  • ''To me the meanest flower that blows can give
    Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.''
    William Wordsworth (1770-1850), British poet. Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, l. 206-7 (written 1802-1804), published in Poems in Two Volumes (1807). Closing lines of poem.
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  • ''Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind—
    But how could I forget thee?''
    William Wordsworth (1770-1850), British poet. Surprised by Joy (l. 5-6). . . The Poems; Vol. 1 [William Wordsworth]. John O. Hayden, ed. (1977, repr. 1990) Penguin Books.
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  • ''Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
    Shades of the prison-house begin to close
    Upon the growing boy.''
    William Wordsworth (1770-1850), British poet. Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, st. 5, l. 66-8, Poems in Two Volumes (1807). Ambrose Bierce made a riposte to this in The Devil's Dictionary (1881-1906): "Heaven lies about us in our infancy ... and the world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward."
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  • ''Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore
    Of nicely-calculated less or more.''
    William Wordsworth (1770-1850), British poet. "Tax Not the Royal Saint," or" Inside of King's College Chapel, Cambridge," Sonnet 43, Ecclesiastical Sonnets (1822). Sonnet 43, titled "Inside of King's College Chapel, Cambridge", is also known by the opening words, "Tax Not the Royal Saint."
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The Sparrow's Nest

BEHOLD, within the leafy shade,
Those bright blue eggs together laid!
On me the chance-discovered sight
Gleamed like a vision of delight.
I started---seeming to espy
The home and sheltered bed,
The Sparrow's dwelling, which, hard by
My Father' house, in wet or dry
My sister Emmeline and I

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