Lakes Poets
William Wordsworth
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Robert Southey
Lakes Authors
John Ruskin
Thomas De Quincey
Beatrix Potter
Lake District Actors
Stan Laurel
Lake District Chefs
David Myers (Hairy Biker)
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FREE LAKE DISTRICT POETRY & QUOTES FOR YOUR WEBSITE
Elegiac Stanzas
(William Wordsworth)
Lulled by the sound of pastoral bells,
Rude Nature's Pilgrims did we go,
From the dread summit of the Queen
Of mountains, through a deep ravine,
Where, in her holy chapel, dwells
"Our Lady of the Snow."
The sky was blue, the air was mild;
Free were the streams and green the bowers;
As if, to rough assaults unknown,
The genial spot had 'ever' shown
A countenance that as sweetly smiled--
The face of summer-hours.
And we were gay, our hearts at ease;
With pleasure dancing through the frame
We journeyed; all we knew of care--
Our path that straggled here and there;
Of trouble--but the fluttering breeze;
Of Winter--but a name.
If foresight could have rent the veil
Of three short days--but hush--no more!
Calm is the grave, and calmer none
Than that to which thy cares are gone,
Thou Victim of the stormy gale;
Asleep on ZURICH'S shore!
O GODDARD! what art thou?--a name--
A sunbeam followed by a shade!
Nor more, for aught that time supplies,
The great, the experienced, and the wise:
Too much from this frail earth we claim,
And therefore are betrayed.
We met, while festive mirth ran wild,
Where, from a deep lake's mighty urn,
Forth slips, like an enfranchised slave,
A sea-green river, proud to lave,
With current swift and undefiled,
The towers of old LUCERNE.
We parted upon solemn ground
Far-lifted towards the unfading sky;
But all our thoughts were 'then' of Earth,
That gives to common pleasures birth;
And nothing in our hearts we found
That prompted even a sigh.
Fetch, sympathising Powers of air,
Fetch, ye that post o'er seas and lands,
Herbs, moistened by Virginian dew,
A most untimely grave to strew,
Whose turf may never know the care
Of 'kindred' human hands!
Beloved by every gentle Muse
He left his Transatlantic home:
Europe, a realised romance,
Had opened on his eager glance;
What present bliss!--what golden views!
What stores for years to come!
Though lodged within no vigorous frame,
His soul her daily tasks renewed,
Blithe as the lark on sun-gilt wings
High poised--or as the wren that sings
In shady places, to proclaim
Her modest gratitude.
Not vain is sadly-uttered praise;
The words of truth's memorial vow
Are sweet as morning fragrance shed
From flowers 'mid GOLDAU'S ruins bred;
As evening's fondly-lingering rays,
On RIGHI'S silent brow.
Lamented Youth! to thy cold clay
Fit obsequies the Stranger paid;
And piety shall guard the Stone
Which hath not left the spot unknown
Where the wild waves resigned their prey--
And 'that' which marks thy bed.
And, when thy Mother weeps for Thee,
Lost Youth! a solitary Mother;
This tribute from a casual Friend
A not unwelcome aid may lend,
To feed the tender luxury,
The rising pang to smother.
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Poems/ Poetry / Quotations by William Wordsworth
Address To The Scholars Of The Village School Of ---- | Anecdote For Fathers | Character Of The Happy Warrior | Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 | Danish Boy, The: A Fragment | Elegiac Stanzas | Elegiac Stanzas Suggested By A Picture Of Peele Castle In A Storm, Painted By Sir George Beaumont | Ellen Irwin | England, 1802 iv | "The World Is Too Much With Us; Late and Soon" | "There is an Eminence,--of these our hills" | A Character | A Complaint | A Night Thought | A Poet! He Hath Put his Heart to School | After-Thought | By the Seaside | Forsaken, The | Green Linnet, The | Guilt and Sorrow | Idle Shepherd Boys, The | Influence of Natural Objects | Lines written as a School Exercise at Hawkshead, Anno Aetatis | London, 1802 | Lucy Gray | Lucy ii | Lucy iv | November, 1806 | Nutting | Seven Sisters, The | October, 1803 | Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood | On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic | Peter Bell, A Tale | Pet-Lamb, The: A Pastoral Poem | Rainbow, The | Remembrance of Collins | She Was a Phantom of Delight | Speak! | Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known | Longest Day, The | Prelude, The - (Book 2) | Prelude, The - (Book 4) | Table Turned, The | World Is Too Much With Us, The | Trosachs, The | Sonnet, The (i) | To A Butterfly (first poem) | To a Highland Girl (At Inversneyde, upon Loch Lomond) | To A Sexton | To a Skylark | To May | To My Sister | To The Cuckoo | To The Daisy (fourth poem) | Two Thieves, The | We are Seven | Written in Germany, On One of The Coldest Days Of The Century | Yarrow Revisited |
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