Six Years Old
O THOU whose fancies from afar are brought;
Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel,
And fittest to unutterable thought
The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol,
Thou fairy voyager! that dost float
In such clear water, that thy...

Three years she grew in sun and shower;
Then Nature said, “A lovelier flower
  On earth was never sown:
This child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
  A lady of my own.

“Myself will to my darling be
Both law and...

            A Simple child,
  That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
  What should it know of death?

I met a little cottage girl:
  She was eight years old, she said;
Her hair was thick with many a curl
  That...

At Inversnaid, upon Loch Lomond
SWEET Highland Girl, a very shower
Of beauty is thy earthly dower!
Twice seven consenting years have shed
Their utmost bounty on thy head;
And these gray rocks, this household lawn,
These trees,—a veil just half...

She was a phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely apparition, sent
To be a moment’s ornament;
Her eyes as stars of twilight fair;
Like Twilight’s, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-...

“with sacrifice, before the rising morn,
  Vows have I made by fruitless hope inspired;
And from th’ infernal gods, ’mid shades forlorn
  Of night, my slaughtered lord have I required;
Celestial pity I again implore;
Restore him to my sight—great Jove,...

    STERN daughter of the voice of God!
      O Duty! if that name thou love
    Who art a light to guide, a rod
      To check the erring, and reprove—
    Thou, who art victory and law
    When empty terrors overawe;
    From vain temptations...

I.
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 the dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore:
        ...

  THE Cock is crowing,
  The stream is flowing,
  The small birds twitter,
  The lake doth glitter,
The green field sleeps in the sun;
  The oldest and youngest
  Are at work with the strongest;
  The cattle are grazing,
  Their...

I Wandered lonely as a cloud
  That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,—
  A host of golden daffodils
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine...