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A Poet's Epitaph
(William Wordsworth)

Art thou a Statist in the van
Of public conflicts trained and bred?
--First learn to love one living man;
'Then' may'st thou think upon the dead.

A Lawyer art thou?--draw not nigh!
Go, carry to some fitter place
The keenness of that practised eye,
The hardness of that sallow face.

Art thou a Man of purple cheer?
A rosy Man, right plump to see?
Approach; yet, Doctor, not too near,
This grave no cushion is for thee.

Or art thou one of gallant pride,
A Soldier and no man of chaff?
Welcome!--but lay thy sword aside,
And lean upon a peasant's staff.

Physician art thou? one, all eyes,
Philosopher! a fingering slave,
One that would peep and botanise
Upon his mother's grave?

Wrapt closely in thy sensual fleece,
O turn aside,--and take, I pray,
That he below may rest in peace,
Thy ever-dwindling soul, away!

A Moralist perchance appears;
Led, Heaven knows how! to this poor sod:
And he has neither eyes nor ears;
Himself his world, and his own God;

One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling
Nor form, nor feeling, great or small;
A reasoning, self-sufficing thing,
An intellectual All-in-all!

Shut close the door; press down the latch;
Sleep in thy intellectual crust;
Nor lose ten tickings of thy watch
Near this unprofitable dust.

But who is He, with modest looks,
And clad in homely russet brown?
He murmurs near the running brooks
A music sweeter than their own.

He is retired as noontide dew,
Or fountain in a noon-day grove;
And you must love him, ere to you
He will seem worthy of your love.

The outward shows of sky and earth,
Of hill and valley, he has viewed;
And impulses of deeper birth
Have come to him in solitude.

In common things that round us lie
Some random truths he can impart,--
The harvest of a quiet eye
That broods and sleeps on his own heart.

But he is weak; both Man and Boy,
Hath been an idler in the land;
Contented if he might enjoy
The things which others understand.

--Come hither in thy hour of strength;
Come, weak as is a breaking wave!
Here stretch thy body at full length;
Or build thy house upon this grave.


Poems/ Poetry / Quotations by William Wordsworth
 Childless Father, The | Composed During a Storm | Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 | Desideria | Elegiac Stanzas Suggested By A Picture Of Peele Castle In A Storm, Painted By Sir George Beaumont | A Narrow Girdle of Rough Stones and Crags, | "She Dwelt Among Untrodden Ways" | She was a phantom of delight | "Surprised by Joy--Impatient as the Wind" | "'Tis Said, That Some Have Died For Love" | "With Ships the Sea was Sprinkled Far and Nigh," | A Character | A Poet! He Hath Put his Heart to School | A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal | By the Seaside | Daffodils | Goody Blake and Harry Gill | Idiot Boy, The | Inscriptions Written with a Slate Pencil upon a Stone | It is not to be Thought of | Lament Of Mary Queen Of Scots | Laodamia | Memory | Mutability | My Heart Leaps Up | O Nightingale! Thou Surely Art | September, 1819 | Oak and The Broom, The: A Pastoral Poem | Ode Composed On A May Morning | On the Departure of Sir Walter Scott from Abbotsford | On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic | Resolution and Independence | Reverie of Poor Susan, The | Rural Architecture | Russian Fugitive, The | Ruth | Solitary Reaper, The | Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle upon the Restoration of Lord Clifford, the Shepherd, to the Estates and Honours of his Ancestors | Song For The Wandering Jew | Sparrow's Nest, The | Surprised by Joy | French Revolution as it appeared to Enthusiasts, The | Power of Armies Is a Visible Thing, The | Prelude, The - (Book 1) | Prelude, The - (Book 4) | Reaper, The | 'Tis Said, That Some Have Died For Love | There is an Eminence of these our hills | Wishing Gate, The | Seven Sisters, The (OR Solitude of Binnorie, The) | Sonnet, The (ii) | Shepherd Looking Eastward Softly Said, The | To A Butterfly (second poem) | To M.H. | To May | To The Daisy (second poem) | To The Daisy (third poem) | Two April Mornings, The | We are Seven | With How Sad Steps, O Moon, Thou Climb'st the Sky | With ships the sea was sprinkled | Written in Early Spring | Written in Germany, On One of The Coldest Days Of The Century | Written in London. September, 1802 | Written in March | Written With a Pencil Upon a Stone In The Wall of The House, On The Island at Grasmere | Yarrow Unvisited | Yarrow Visited |


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Many great poems where created by English Poets in Cumbrias Lake District Areas and Villages such as Grasmere, Buttermere, Bowness, Kendal, Windermere, Keswick and Coniston.
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