2. William Wordsworth (7 April 1770 â 23 April 1850) was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads. The second of five children born to John Wordsworth and Ann Cookson, William Wordsworth was born on 7 April 1770 in Wordsworth House in Cockermouth, Cumberlandâpart of the scenic region in northwest England, the Lake District. His sister, the poet and diarist Dorothy Wordsworth, to whom he was close all his life, was born the following year, and the two were baptised ghj. They had three other siblings: Richard, the eldest, who became a lawyer; John, born after Dorothy, who went to sea and died in 1805 when the ship of which he was Master, Earl of Abergavenny was wrecked off the south coast of England; and Christopher, the youngest, who entered the Church and rose to be Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.Their father was a legal representative of James Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale and, through his connections, lived in a large mansion in the small town. Wordsworth, as with his siblings, had little involvement with their father, and they would be distant from him until his death in 1783.
3. Wordsworth's father, although rarely present, did teach him poetry, including that of Milton, Shakespeare and Spenser, in addition to allowing his son to rely on his own father's library. Along with spending time reading in Cockermouth, Wordsworth would also stay at his mother's parents house in Penrith, Cumberland. At Penrith, Wordsworth was exposed to the moors. Wordsworth could not get along with his grandparents and his uncle, and his hostile interactions with them distressed him to the point of contemplating suicide. After the death of their mother, in 1778, John Wordsworth sent William to Hawkshead Grammar School in Lancashire and Dorothy to live with relatives in Yorkshire; she and William would not meet again for another nine years. Although Hawkshead was Wordsworth's first serious experience with education, he had been taught to read by his mother and had attended a tiny school of low quality in Cockermouth. After the Cockermouth school, he was sent to a school in Penrith for the children of upper-class families and taught by Ann Birkett, a woman who insisted on instilling in her students traditions that included pursuing both scholarly and local activities, especially the festivals around Easter, May Day, and Shrove Tuesday. Wordsworth was taught both the Bible and the Spectator, but little else. It was at the school that Wordsworth was to meet the Hutchinsons, including Mary, who would be his future wife.
4. Wordsworth made his debut as a writer in 1787 when he published a sonnet in The European Magazine. That same year he began attending St John's College, Cambridge, and received his B.A. degree in 1791.He returned to Hawkshead for his first two summer holidays, and often spent later holidays on walking tours, visiting places famous for the beauty of their landscape. In 1790, he took a walking tour of Europe, during which he toured the Alps extensively, and visited nearby areas of France, Switzerland, and Italy.
6. Earth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty; This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theaters, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill; Neâer saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!
7. A farewell FAREWELL, thou little Nook of mountain-ground,Thou rocky corner in the lowest stairOf that magnificent temple which doth boundOne side of our whole vale with grandeur rare;Sweet garden-orchard, eminently fair,The loveliest spot that man hath ever found,Farewell!--we leave thee to Heaven's peaceful care,Thee, and the Cottage which thou dost surround.Our boat is safely anchored by the shore,And there will safely ride when we are gone; The flowering shrubs that deck our humble doorWill prosper, though untended and alone:Fields, goods, and far-off chattels we have none:These narrow bounds contain our private storeOf things earth makes, and sun doth shine upon;Here are they in our sight--we have no more.
8. Sunshine and shower be with you, bud and bell!For two months now in vain we shall be sought:We leave you here in solitude to dwellWith these our latest gifts of tender thought; Thou, like the morning, in thy saffron coat,Bright gowan, and marsh-marigold, farewell!Whom from the borders of the Lake we brought,And placed together near our rocky Well.We go for One to whom ye will be dear;And she will prize this Bower, this Indian shed,Our own contrivance, Building without peer!--A gentle Maid, whose heart is lowly bred,Whose pleasures are in wild fields gathered,With joyousness, and with a thoughtful cheer, Will come to you; to you herself will wed;And love the blessed life that we lead here.
9. Dear Spot! which we have watched with tender heed,Bringing thee chosen plants and blossoms blownAmong the distant mountains, flower and weed,Which thou hast taken to thee as thy own,Making all kindness registered and known;Thou for our sakes, though Nature's child indeed,Fair in thyself and beautiful alone,Hast taken gifts which thou dost little need. And O most constant, yet most fickle Place,Thou hast thy wayward moods, as thou dost showTo them who look not daily on thy face;Who, being loved, in love no bounds dost know,And say'st, when we forsake thee, 'Let them go!'Thou easy-hearted Thing, with thy wild raceOf weeds and flowers, till we return be slow,And travel with the year at a soft pace.
10. Help us to tell Her tales of years gone by,And this sweet spring, the best beloved and best; Joy will be flown in its mortality;Something must stay to tell us of the rest.Here, thronged with primroses, the steep rock's breastGlittered at evening like a starry sky;And in this bush our sparrow built her nest,Of which I sang one song that will not die.O happy Garden! whose seclusion deepHath been so friendly to industrious hours;And to soft slumbers, that did gently steepOur spirits, carrying with them dreams of flowers, And wild notes warbled among leafy bowers;Two burning months let summer overleap,And, coming back with Her who will be ours,Into thy bosom we again shall creep.
