Selection from the Sonnets of William Wordsworth

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By Listen TheBook Posted on Jun 1, 2023

In Category - Sonnets, Single author

Authors: William Wordsworth In Year : 1891

Book Language: English

Audiobook: Selection from the Sonnets of William Wordsworth

Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room
Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned
Written in very Early Youth
I watch, and long have watched, with calm regret
How clear, how keen, how marvellously bright
While not a leaf seems faded; while the fields
There is a pleasure in poetic pains
Oxford, May 30, 1820
A Parsonage in Oxfordshire
Hail, Twilight, sovereign of one peaceful hour!
Mark the concentred hazels that enclose
Composed at Rydal on May Morning, 1838
Though the bold wings of Poesy affect
Pelion and Ossa flourish side by side
To Sleep
Fond words have oft been spoken to thee, Sleep!
The River Eden, Cumberland
Surprised by joy - impatient as the Wind
Her only pilot the soft breeze, the boat
With Ships the sea was sprinkled far and nigh
Where lies the Land to which yon Ship must go?
Sole listener, Duddon! to the Breeze that played
What aspect bore the Man who roved or fled
Hail to the fields - with dwellings sprinkled o'er
The Stepping-Stones
Whence that low voice? - A whisper from the heart
I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide
Brook! whose society the poet seeks
Methinks that to some vacant hermitage
There is a little unpretending Rill
Written upon a Blank Leaf in "The Complete Angler"
Oh Friend! I know not which way I must look
The world is too much with us; late and soon
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour
Great men have been among us; hands that penned
It is not to be thought of that the Flood
When I have borne in memory what has tamed
Near Dover
Vanguard of Liberty, ye men of Kent
Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland
An Invasion Being Expected, October 1803
Composed in the Valley near Dover, on the Day of Landing
Not Love, not War, nor the tumultuous swell
To Toussaint L'Ouverture
When Philoctetes in the Lemnian Isle
When haughty expectations prostrate lie
O'er the wide earth, on mountain and on plain
On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic
By Grasmere Lake
Composed by the Sea-Side, Near Calais
As leaves are to the tree whereon they grow
Adieu, Rydalian Laurels! that have grown
The Trosachs
Admonition
The forest huge of ancient Caledon
Aix-la-Chapelle
Between Namur and Liège
Composed on Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1802
Roman Antiquities
The Monument commonly called Long Meg and Her Daughters, near the River Eden
There! said a Stripling, pointing with meet pride
Mary Queen of Scots
In sight of the Town of Cockermouth
A Place of Burial in the South of Scotland
Most sweet it is with unuplifted eyes
In King's College Chapel, Cambridge
They dreamt not of a perishable home
Rural Ceremony
Places of Worship
Who but is pleased to watch the moon on high
The Shepherd, looking eastward, softly said
With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the sky
The stars are mansions built by Nature's hand
To a Snow-drop
Hark! 'tis the Thrush, undaunted, undeprest
I dropped my pen; and listened to the Wind
It is a beauteous evening, calm and free
To the Cuckoo
Near Anio's stream, I spied a gentle Dove
Composed on a May Morning
Personal Talk
Yet life, you say, "is life; we have seen and see"
Wings have we - and as far as we can go
Nor can I not believe but that hereby
How sweet it is, when mother Fancy rocks
Why art thou silent? Is thy love a plant
To the Planet Venus, an Evening Star
Valedictory Sonnet

This is a very impressive collection of some of the best sonnets from the pen of the incomparable William Wordsworth. The appreciation that Wordsworth had for the beauty of his surroundings is vibrantly exhibited in these selections, as are his feelings on love, friendship, society, conflict, history, the supernatural and indeed the art of poetry itself. And what better vehicle for the elegant articulation of a master poet's thoughts and inspirations than the sonnet, an art form ideally suited to assertion, verbalization and contemplation.

In these sonnets, we witness Wordsworth's poetic expertise at its best in superb descriptions of nature's splendor which he astutely juxtaposes with his reflections on a world that is "too much with us," a world in which, "man for brother man has ceased to feel."

The sanctuary that Wordsworth found and which forms the basis for the inspiration displayed in many of these sonnets was the magnificent Lake District of England, which he depicted as, "At happy distance from Earth's groaning field, / Where ruthless mortals wage incessant wars." Such a sanctuary the poet would have wished for us all, and indeed provided the means for at least our vicarious enjoyment in the form of these enduring and timeless works of art.
- Summary by Bruce Kachuk