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William Wordsworth
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Apr 17, 2009 05:33PM
I also enjoy Wordsworths work. I like the White Doe of Rylstone.
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I have two very, very old Books of his, bound in leather with the nice blotting pages or whatever they are across from the illustrations. They're both deep green and smell like heaven.
I only have one leather bound. I love it.
Wordsworth is amazing! I love 'To my Sister'. In fact, I'll put it here:
To My Sister
IT is the first mild day of March:
Each minute sweeter than before
The redbreast sings from the tall larch
That stands beside our door.
There is a blessing in the air,
Which seems a sense of joy to yield
To the bare trees, and mountains bare,
And grass in the green field.
My sister! ('tis a wish of mine)
Now that our morning meal is done,
Make haste, your morning task resign;
Come forth and feel the sun.
Edward will come with you;--and, pray,
Put on with speed your woodland dress;
And bring no book: for this one day
We'll give to idleness.
No joyless forms shall regulate
Our living calendar:
We from to-day, my Friend, will date
The opening of the year.
Love, now a universal birth,
From heart to heart is stealing,
From earth to man, from man to earth:
--It is the hour of feeling.
One moment now may give us more
Than years of toiling reason:
Our minds shall drink at every pore
The spirit of the season.
Some silent laws our hearts will make,
Which they shall long obey:
We for the year to come may take
Our temper from to-day.
And from the blessed power that rolls
About, below, above,
We'll frame the measure of our souls:
They shall be tuned to love.
Then come, my Sister! come, I pray,
With speed put on your woodland dress;
And bring no book: for this one day
We'll give to idleness.
1798.
To My Sister
IT is the first mild day of March:
Each minute sweeter than before
The redbreast sings from the tall larch
That stands beside our door.
There is a blessing in the air,
Which seems a sense of joy to yield
To the bare trees, and mountains bare,
And grass in the green field.
My sister! ('tis a wish of mine)
Now that our morning meal is done,
Make haste, your morning task resign;
Come forth and feel the sun.
Edward will come with you;--and, pray,
Put on with speed your woodland dress;
And bring no book: for this one day
We'll give to idleness.
No joyless forms shall regulate
Our living calendar:
We from to-day, my Friend, will date
The opening of the year.
Love, now a universal birth,
From heart to heart is stealing,
From earth to man, from man to earth:
--It is the hour of feeling.
One moment now may give us more
Than years of toiling reason:
Our minds shall drink at every pore
The spirit of the season.
Some silent laws our hearts will make,
Which they shall long obey:
We for the year to come may take
Our temper from to-day.
And from the blessed power that rolls
About, below, above,
We'll frame the measure of our souls:
They shall be tuned to love.
Then come, my Sister! come, I pray,
With speed put on your woodland dress;
And bring no book: for this one day
We'll give to idleness.
1798.
I am such a dork. I just looked again, and the books I have are Longfellow, published 1899 and 1902. They're still lovely, though.
Longfellow is one we had to memorize in school. My favorite, though, is Wordsworth's poem about daffodils. It gets me through the months of February and March when winter seem forever gray.
Some of Wordsworth's longer poems are challenging but worth the effort. Intimations of Immortality is a favorite of mine. "Though nothing can bring back the hour/ Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower/ We will grieve not, rather find/ strength in what remains behind." GG Husak
author: Passeggiata: Strolling through Italy
www.passeggiataitalia.com
I'm with Cammieo on this one. I hate reading poetry and I think much of it has to do with poor instruction in poetry in school.
