330 quotes
As pensive evening deepens into night.
For nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,
And their glad animal movements all gone by)
To me was all in all.—I cannot paint
What then I was.
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!
Ode to Duty (1805)
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.
Rapt into still communion that transcends
The imperfect offices of prayer and praise,
His mind was a thanksgiving to the power
That made him; it was blessedness and love!
From the sweet thoughts of home
And from all hope I was forever hurled.
For me—farthest from earthly port to roam
Was best, could I but shun the spot where man might come.
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
A few strong instincts and a few plain rules,
Among the herdsmen of the Alps, have wrought
More for mankind at this unhappy day
Then all the pride of intellect and thought?
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.
Peter Bell (1798)
O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
My eyes are dim with childish tears,
My heart is idly stirred,
For the same sound is in my ears
Which in those days I heard.
Thus fares it still in our decay:
And yet the wiser mind
Mourns less for what age takes away
Than what it leaves behind.
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
O Blithe newcomer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice.
O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?
She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
But Thy most dreaded instrument
In working out a pure intent,
Is man,—arrayed for mutual slaughter,—
Yea, Carnage is Thy daughter.
Poems dedicated to National Independence and Liberty (1815)
Up! up! my friend, and quit your books,
Or surely you 'll grow double!
Up! up! my friend, and clear your looks!
Why all this toil and trouble?
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)
Dear Child of Nature, let them rail!
These feeble and fastidious times.
Drink, pretty creature, drink!
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
He spake of love, such love as spirits feel
In worlds whose course is equable and pure;
No fears to beat away, no strife to heal,—
The past unsighed for, and the future sure.
Laodamia (1814)
Mightier far
Than strength of nerve or sinew, or the sway
Of magic potent over sun and star,
Is Love, though oft to agony distrest,
And though his favorite seat be feeble woman's breast.
Laodamia (1814)
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.