Favorite Poems

by William Wordsworth

Widely considered the greatest and most influential of the English Romantic poets, William Wordsworth (1770–1850) remains today among the most admired and studied of all English writers. He is best remembered for the poems he wrote between 1798 and 1806, the period most fully represented in this selection of 39 of his most highly regarded works.
Among them are poems from the revolutionary Lyrical Ballads of 1798, including the well-known "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abby"; the famous "Lucy" series of 1799; the political and social commentaries of 1802; the moving "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"; and the great "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" — all reprinted from an authoritative edition.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, 19th Century, Fiction, Literature, British Literature, Romanticism

80 pages, Paperback

First published February 5, 1992

About the author

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was a major English romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their 1798 joint publication, Lyrical Ballads.

Wordsworth's masterpiece is generally considered to be The Prelude, an autobiographical poem of his early years, which the poet revised and expanded a number of times. The work was posthumously titled and published, prior to which, it was generally known as the poem "to Coleridge". Wordsworth was England's Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850.

Reviews

[Brittney Andrews (beabookworm) · Rating 4 out of 5]

William Wordsworth is easily one of the most influential English poets of all time, especially due to the fact that he helped launch the Romantic Age in literature.

Majority of his works are lengthy so they take longer to get into, but the feeling you get while reading his work is like none other. You essentially "get out of it what you put into it". I have to be in the right mood for Wordsworth or else I don't fully appreciate what I am reading because it's easy to get lost or bored when poems are lengthy.

Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;—
Turn wheresoe’er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

Probably one of my favourite quotes of all time has got to be "To begin, begin."

William Wordsworth
7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850

[Douglas Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this, although to be frank, some of his poems I thought were pretty lame. I have hated, for example, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" since I first read it, probably in high school. On the other hand, there were a number of poems that were magisterial, really striking.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

There's just no getting around it - I can't stand Wordsworth's poetry. Dullness oozes from every tormented line. The author just seems like a crashing bore with way too much time on his hands, all the better to peer out at the damp English countryside and wax pompous.

I'll grant you - this may have something to do with my INTJ personality type, which involves a fair amount of obliviousness to my surroundings. As I tend to spend far too much time living in my head, my relationship with "Nature" is such that my ideal camping trip would be to stay at a Hyatt Regency and commune with the out-of-doors by observing the babbling brook in the atrium bar while sipping alcoholic beverages.

But it's not just my fault. I mean, there's this:

And, thus continuing, she said,
"I had a Son, who many a day
Sail'd on the seas; but he is dead;
In Denmark he was cast away;
And I have been as far as Hull, to see
What clothes he might have left, or other property."
(The Sailor's Mother)

or this:

In March, December, and in July,
'Tis all the same with Harry Gill;
The neighbours tell, and tell you truly,
His teeth they chatter, chatter still.
At night, at morning, and at noon,
'Tis all the same with Harry Gill;
Beneath the sun, beneath the moon,
His teeth they chatter, chatter still.

So that I have to agree with Ezra Pound:

“Mr Wordsworth, a stupid man, with a decided gift for portraying nature in vignettes, never ruined anyone’s morals, I suppose, unless perhaps he has driven some susceptible persons to crime in a fury of boredom.”

Sniglet: tinternabulation - a rare psychosomatic condition, characterized by the sufferer hearing imaginary voices in the head, incessantly declaiming the poetry of Wordsworth. Rapidly lethal, if left untreated.

[Alex]

‘To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.’

‘Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
Thy Soul’s immensity…’

‘And We are left, or shall be left, alone;
The last that dare to struggle with the Foe.
‘T is well! from this day forward we shall know
That in ourselves our safety must be sought;
That by our own right hands it must be wrought;
That we must stand unpropped, or be laid low.’

‘Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone,
Housed in a dream, at distance from the Kind!
Such happiness, wherever it be known,
Is to be pitied; for ‘t is surely blind.’

‘Seven years, alas! to have received
No tidings of an _______;
To have despaired, have hoped, believed,
And been for evermore beguiled;
Sometimes with thoughts of very bliss!
I catch at them, and then I miss;
Was ever darkness like to this?’

‘Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade
Of that which once was great, is passed away.’

‘… And so I dare to hope,
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first
I came among the hills; when like a roe
I bounded o’er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led: more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
… To me was all in all…’

‘I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.’

‘A day it was when I could bear
Some fond regrets to entertain;
With so much happiness to spare,
I could not feel a pain.’

[Challice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. I wanted to like Wordsworth poetry but there was only one poem in this little edition that I actually enjoyed and copied down to work on memorizing. Not all poetry is for memorizing. Some is for reflection, a soft hug, a song against injustice, a love letter, etc. Wordsworth seemed to have a bit of everything which theoretically would mean there would be something in here for everyone, and I guess to a certain extent there was for me. However, I do not think I will be pursuing any more of his poems. I am not sure I'm cut out to read poetry.

[KowaiMangl · Rating 1 out of 5]

It’s a no from me…

[Hope · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anyone familiar with "Daffodils" knows it's a pretty straightforward ode to beauty. But most of Wordworth's other poems are more subtle and philosophical. Not an easy read, but worth the effort.

[R · Rating 5 out of 5]

”Ah! since dark days still bring to light
Man's prudence and man's fiery might,
Time may restore us in his course
Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force;
But where will Europe's latter hour
Again find Wordsworth's healing power?
Others will teach us how to dare,
And against fear our breast to steel;
Others will strengthen us to bear—
But who, ah! who, will make us feel?”
- Matthew Arnold

Reputation – 5/5
There are three unassailable names in English poetry: Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton. Every other poet, no matter how famous or influential, sits beneath these three in the judgement of an English critic. But there is a fourth figure who is often considered in contention with those three – William Wordsworth.
Wordsworth’s reputation is later made and less upheld, but it is difficult to seriously argue that he does not belong, if not immediately in that company, at least as the nearest outsider. He was the poet who initiated the Romantic movement in England, and he has left us with some of the most memorable short poems in the language. Nearly all of his great poetry was written before he turned 36. The rest of his life is universally regarded as a decline by critics and casual fans alike. This is a collection of the “Favorite Poems,” and consequently, they all date from 1807 or before.

Point – 5/5
Wordsworth's one decade of world-changing poetry began in 1798 when he and his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge published Lyrical Ballads. In a preface to subsequent editions of that book, Wordsworth would outline his theory of poetry. The preface has rightly become famous for several memorable phrases and for the key it offers us to understanding Wordsworth's poetry.
The three main innovations of Wordsworth's style are reactions against the refined, "French" style of poetry en vogue in 18th Century England. Poetry in those days was witty, based on classical forms, and generally only dealing with traditionally "noble" subjects - history, antiquity, etc. Wordsworth turned his back on all that. He deliberately wrote poetry that was humorless and solemn, in the language of folk ballads. Instead of writing about Ancient Greece, he wrote about nature and personal reflection. His subject was that which any plain man could see or feel.

But Wordsworth’s real claim to a seat on Parnassus rests on the depth and intensity with which he studied one specific subject – himself.
As a young man he was in raptures over the French Revolution and the prospect of a new consciousness of man. For about 10 years, starting from the first edition of Lyrical Ballads in 1798, Wordsworth wrote some of the greatest poetry in the history of the language. But sometime between the years 1806-1810, all his inspiration left him.
Then, as if a human personification of counter-revolution, he grew to be a stubborn, beaten down old man. As he realized this, he began to look back and sought immortality in childhood, in nature, in those things that could not be poisoned by the outside world of war and men and petty politics. He never tried to justify his stoic retreat or to give any concrete philosophy to anyone. He seems to have realized the smallness of his personal antidote to the world’s chaos. Of outside affairs he left them the to the unknowable judgment of the universe.
All his life he worked on a poem called The Recluse, and though he worked for the English state, he remained an intellectual recluse like those ancient sages of the East. There is something in Wordsworth that makes him like those Chinese poets that Western writers turned towards in the mid-20th Century. “Resolution and Independence” is like a Zen parable extended into English Romantic verse.

Of course, his inner retreat is the antithesis of the Romantic sentiment that one must stick to one’s convictions, to fight to the end. Retreating into oneself is to admit defeat. And in this we see the reason why Shelley and the later Romantics came to hate him. Wordsworth had offered them a new spirit of the age, and just when they had all rallied around him, he shrank from that leadership and retreated to his lakeside home in the quiet North of England to start a family, become conservative, and write poetry that became increasingly boring. He lived that way for the next 40 years, writing almost nothing worth reading. He had lost the faith and he knew it.

But this loss of faith makes Wordsworth a mascot, a representative of an age that sees all the world before it, but with nothing to believe in, doubts itself and looks back. Small surprise that the next generation of English and German artists – Tennyson, Wagner, and the like – sought shelter in the Middle Ages, that dawn of European faith.
Wordsworth turned backwards on a personal level – to childhood. In his great poetry, he went first forward, through himself, then, in his bad poetry, he turned backwards, to himself. This is why his later introspective poetry is intolerable. Because it is no longer inner searching, but rote remembering with that egotistical persuasion you find so often in older men who feel that their life is full of lessons. But this is a familiar fall that we all replay as we grow old. Wordsworth was just the first to notice it, to describe it, and to honestly admit it as a failure of values. In this he is representative of all those in whom the fire of youth grows lukewarm with age.
Retreat and loss of faith do not make for a satisfying ending. But still, it seems to me hypocritical to be too judgmental of Wordsworth’s later years, for we follow his path of retreat in our arts of medieval fantasy, in our politics of placid admiration for our national founders, and in our own desire for a quiet lakeside retreat, away from the world’s cares. Wordsworth merely showed us the way forward, then back.

Recommendation – 5/5
What you've got in this slender book is the collection of Wordsworth that everyone ought to read. It features nearly every shorter poem you need to get to know Wordsworth, including all the famous lyrics like "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" and "We are Seven." It also includes “Tintern Abbey,” “Resolution and Independence,” and “Ode: Intimations of Immortality," three medium-length poems that perfectly encapsulate Wordsworth’s philosophy of life and poetry. His longer works, The Prelude and The Excursion, are not included in this selection, even as abridgements, and that is probably for the best. They are too long (occasionally dull) and require more concentrated reading than one should expect from a collection titled “Favorite Poems.”

Personal – 3/5
Wordsworth has never been one of my favorite poets. When I was younger and under the spell of Byron and Shelley, I joined in volleying insults at Wordsworth for being a shut-in bore without ever having understood him. While I still don’t love him, I have come to reappraise him on two accounts. The first is that Wordsworth does have a unique ability to “make us feel” as Matthew Arnold put it. His poetry does not awe or inspire us; it does not make us admire its technique or intelligence. It makes us feel. I sometimes wonder how intellectual Wordsworth really was. What is greatest in him is that which seems organic and untrained – unpoetic, even. In this sense he is almost the opposite of the great intellectual, Milton.
In comparing him to Milton, I have come to see Wordsworth in that light which made Byron and Shelley despise him. Having understood Wordsworth’s greatness, a generation of hopefuls put their faith in him. They expected him to carry the torch of Milton, that fierce prophet, uncontrollable by politics, and to never give in to dejection. Wordsworth recognized that this was something he could not do, but agreed how necessary it was. He acknowledged this need explicitly in several poems written at the turn of the 19th Century. One, titled “London, 1802,” is included in this collection:

Milton! thou should’st be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart:
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life’s common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

[Kerri · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't know who designated these the "favorite poems" but if this is his best work than Wordsworth just isn't for me. I kind of liked "I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud" and I could really relate to his poem "To Sleep", but all the rest were really ho-hum. Meh.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Frankly, much of this seems dull now. Then you come across one of his well-known works and you understand why he was one of the best of the Romantic poets. My Heart Leaped Up, forgive the pun, when I read "The child is the father of the man". Quite nice. Then the ever lovely, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud". But what most impressed me was the historical poems. Wordsworth was in his thirties when Napoleon was conquering much of Europe. He writes about the "Extinction of the Venetian Republic" (which had thrived for 1,100 years), the fall of Prussia, and "On the Subjugation of Switzerland". He is writing from the perspective of a British citizen worried about the possible demise of its own empire. These still stand strong, as do others. Casual readers may not appreciate much of Wordsworth work but there are gems here for those who wish to look.

[The Half-blood Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Wordsworth. That's it.

[yelnats hammer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of the early ones are amazing because he conveys the power of bumping up against mysterious things. For example the children in We are Seven and Anecdote for Fathers, the “sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused… a motion and a spirit, that impels all thinking things, all objects of all thought, and rolls through all things”, the “spirit in the woods”, and Lucy.

But too often the power of the mystery is cheapened by moralistic explanation. Even one of my favorites Tintern Abbey leans a little too far into this. Much worse are the sentimental poems that pin their effect on simple people (simon lee) and good deeds (ode to duty). I’m not sure anything after 1806 is worth reading, but I discovered some great poems for the first time, like the terribly titled “Resolution and Independence” which has maybe wordsworths most amazing (and most Homeric) simile:

As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie
Couched on the bald top of an eminence;
Wonder to all who do the same espy,
By what means it could thither come, and whence;
So that it seems a thing endued with sense:
Like a sea-beast crawled forth, that on a shelf
Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself;

Such seemed this Man

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well I definitely didn't love every poem in this collection but I've always loved Wordsworth and some of my favourite lines of poetry are his and some of them are included! For example:
"Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind"

Ahh yes please. Love the beauty Wordsworth finds in the everyday as well as nature.

[Ralph Wechuli · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not a fan of poetry. I went for the smallest poetry book in order not to be discouraged. I enjoyed Wordsworth's flow and rhymes; although sometimes I drowned.
The favorite poem in this collection was "The Idiot Boy". It is epic.

[powell sherrod · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really just hate how he writes.

I found his perspectives boring and simple. Nearly every single poem had the same message and not even a new take on it.

To be quite frank I left four poems unread because I just couldn’t physically do it. Taylor Swift how could you write a song about him.

[Noreen Snyder · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book to read!

[Shadowzzz3 · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few good poems amongst the selected some toon long and others too short. Cheap collection worth the cost.

[Alyssa Bohon · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite poets in a slim, budget-friendly (but not ugly) volume that includes many delightful selections.

[Lily Cheesman · Rating 3 out of 5]

-lots of doths, where art thous, eres, you get the gist

-SOMEONE was a fan of Will

-don’t judge a book by its pretty cover.

[Reese · Rating 3 out of 5]

Favourite selections:
"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"
The Affliction of Margaret
November 1806

[Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Tracy Krohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this. Somehow, it felt more relatable than current, modern poetry. My favorites were Nutting and Lines Written In Early Spring

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful collection

[Salome · Rating 4 out of 5]

WE ARE SEVEN
„A simple Child,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death (…)
But they are dead; those two are dead!
Their spirits are in heaven!
‘T was throwing words away; for still
The little maid would have her will,
And said, ‘nay, we are seven’ !”

ANECDOTE FOR FATHERS
“A day it was when I could bear
Some fond regrets to entertain
From shade to sunshine, and its fleet
From sunshine back to shade
(..)
Birds warbled around me- and each trace
Of inward sadness had its charm;
(…)
Oh dearest, dearest boy! My heart
For better lore would seldom yearn,
Could I but teach the hundredth part
Of what from thee I learn.”

LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING
“I heard thousand blended note,
While in a grove i sat reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.
(…)
The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts i cannot measure:-
But the last motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air,
And i must think, do all i can,
That there was pleasure there

If this believe from heaven be sent
If such be natures holy plan
Have i bot reason to lament
What man has made of man?

EXPOSTULATION AND REPLY
“Why william on that grey stone
Thus for the length of half a day
Why william sit you thus alone
And dream your day away?
(…)
Think you mid all this mighty sum
If things for ever speaking
That nothing of itself will come
But we must still be seeking?”

Others i liked:
-the idiot boy

3.5-4⭐️

[Calvin]

So the other day while killing time in a thrift store I saw this collection of Wordsworth poems and wondered if I'd find him as long winded, self absorbed and utterly pompous as I did when I was an undergrad.

Turns out I do.

And yes, before any of my friends email me, I do see the irony and being annoyed by someone who can be seen as long winded and utterly pompous.

I understand, I truly do, how important Lyrical Ballads was in 1798. And while I always was impressed by the Mythology of Coleridge and the Wordsworth theory of what poetry is I still dont really enjoy it much.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I remember reading a letter by either Keats or Shelley saying something akin to they would like Wordsworth more if they didnt get the sense he was standing in the middle of the street all the time and yelling Look at Me, Look at Me. Eh, wish I could remember what that was.

Truth is I prefer the poetry that came before him. Give me some Robert Herrick any today as opposed to this stuff.

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of my favorite poems.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I understood this better than I usually understand poetry, maybe because many of the poems are more narrative. I loved some of the poems, like "Anecdote for Fathers" and "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," but I wasn't in love with the whole book.

[RebelChick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'll give him the fact that most of favorite poems are dark. Or teenage girl stuff but. I didn't like it. The reason I give him two stars is he seems to have a good voice in his poetry and that's a good thing

[Crini · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not the greatest fan of poetry, but I enjoyed a few of the poems so I think it is worth reading since the book is short and the poet is excellent. I am planning on reading more poems by the author in the future.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you can, read this while hiking around in the Lake District. It makes the experience so much better.