William Wordsworth Quotes

411 Sourced Quotes

From the body of one guilty deed a thousand ghostly fears and haunting thoughts proceed.

William Wordsworth
With gentle hand
Touch—for there is a spirit in the woods.

William Wordsworth
Five years have passed; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur.—Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
Which on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

William Wordsworth
Lady of the Mere,
Sole-sitting by the shores of old romance.

William Wordsworth
And, through the turnings intricate of verse,
Present themselves as objects recognised,
In flashes, and with glory not their own.

William Wordsworth
An inventive age
Has wrought, if not with speed of magic, yet
To most strange issues. I have lived to mark
A new and unforeseen creation rise
From out the labours of a peaceful Land
Wielding her potent enginery to frame
And to produce, with appetite as keen
As that of war, which rests not night or day.

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

William Wordsworth
All the mighty world
Of eye and ear, both what they half-create,
And what perceive.

William Wordsworth
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

William Wordsworth
We poets in our youth begin in gladness;
But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness.

William Wordsworth
Not Chaos, not
The darkest pit of lowest Erebus,
Nor aught of blinder vacancy, scooped out
By help of dreams - can breed such fear and awe
As fall upon us often when we look
Into our Minds, into the Mind of Man.

William Wordsworth
Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good:
Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness will grow.

William Wordsworth
Long as there's a sun that sets, Primroses will have their glory; Long as there are violets, They will have a place in story: There's a flower that shall be mine, 'Tis the little Celandine.

William Wordsworth
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
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
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
O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction.

William Wordsworth
I look for ghosts; but none will force Their way to me. 'Tis falsely said That there was ever intercourse Between the living and the dead.

William Wordsworth
We meet thee, like a pleasant thought,
When such are wanted.

William Wordsworth
And sings a solitary song
That whistles in the wind.

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

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

William Wordsworth
But to a higher mark than song can reach,
Rose this pure eloquence.

William Wordsworth
The best of what we do and are,
Just God, forgive!

William Wordsworth
The good old rule
Sufficeth them, the simple plan,
That they should take, who have the power,
And they should keep who can.

William Wordsworth