Happy birthday, Wordsworth.

Haydon, Wordsworth, 1842

William Wordsworth was born on this date in 1770.

The Solitary lifted toward the hills          

A kindling eye:--accordant feelings rushed          

Into my bosom, whence these words broke forth:          

"Oh! what a joy it were, in vigorous health,          

To have a body (this our vital frame          

With shrinking sensibility endued,                                  

And all the nice regards of flesh and blood)          

And to the elements surrender it          

As if it were a spirit!--How divine,          

The liberty, for frail, for mortal, man          

To roam at large among unpeopled glens          

And mountainous retirements, only trod          

By devious footsteps; regions consecrate          

To oldest time! and, reckless of the storm          

That keeps the raven quiet in her nest,          

Be as a presence or a motion--one                            

Among the many there; and while the mists          

Flying, and rainy vapors, call out shapes          

And phantoms from the crags and solid earth          

As fast as a musician scatters sounds          

Out of an instrument; and while the streams          

(As at a first creation and in haste          

To exercise their untried faculties)          

Descending from the region of the clouds,          

And starting from the hollows of the earth          

More multitudinous every moment, rend                     

Their way before them--what a joy to roam          

An equal among mightiest energies;          

And haply sometimes with articulate voice,          

Amid the deafening tumult, scarcely heard          

By him that utters it, exclaim aloud,          

'Rage on ye elements! let moon and stars          

Their aspects lend, and mingle in their turn          

With this commotion (ruinous though it be)          
From day to night, from night to day, prolonged!’

William Wordsworth, from The Excursion, Despondency, Book Three

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