07 April 2015

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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