William Wordsworth

Often have I sighed to measure By myself a lonely pleasure,- Sighed to think I read a book, Only read, perhaps, by me.

What know we of the Blest above but that they sing, and that they love?

For youthful faults ripe virtues shall atone.

Spires whose "silent finger points to heaven."

Strongest minds are often those whom the noisy world hears least.

I travelled among unknown men,_x000D_ _x000D_ In lands beyond the sea;_x000D_ _x000D_ Nor England! did I know till then_x000D_ _x000D_ What love I bore to thee.

I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind.

Before us lay a painful road, And guidance have I sought in duteous love From Wisdom's heavenly Father. Hence hath flowed Patience, with trust that, whatsoe'er the way Each takes in this high matter, all may move Cheered with the prospect of a brighter day.

one daffodil is worth a thousand pleasures, then one is_x000D_ _x000D_ too few.

O dearer far than light and life are dear.

We live by Admiration, Hope, and Love;_x000D_ _x000D_ And, even as these are well and wisely fixed,_x000D_ _x000D_ In dignity of being we ascend.

Oh, be wise, Thou!_x000D_ _x000D_ Instructed that true knowledge leads to love.

Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore of nicely-caluculated less or more.

We must be free or die, who speak the tongue_x000D_ _x000D_ That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold_x000D_ _x000D_ Which Milton held.

What are fears but voices airy?_x000D_ _x000D_ Whispering harm where harm is not._x000D_ _x000D_ And deluding the unwary_x000D_ _x000D_ Till the fatal bolt is shot!

Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close upon the growing boy.

I'll teach my boy the sweetest things; I'll teach him how the owlet sings.

... and we shall find A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.

In ourselves our safety must be sought. By our own right hand it must be wrought.

A mind forever Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting.