• Earth has not anything to show more fair;
    Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
    A sight so touching in its majesty:
    This city now doth, like a garment, wear
    The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
    Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
    Open unto the fields, and to the sky,
    All bright and glittering in the smokeless air....

  • Sonnet
    THE World is too much with us; late and soon,
    Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
    Little we see in nature that is ours;
    We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
    This sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
    The winds that will be howling at all hours,
    And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
    For this, for...

  • My heart leaps up when I behold
        A rainbow in the sky;
    So was it when my life began,
    So is it now I am a man,
    So be it when I shall grow old,
        Or let me die!
    The Child is father of the Man;
    And I could wish my days to be
    Bound each to each by natural piety.

  • Five years have past; five summers, with the length
    Of five long winters! and again I hear
    These waters, 1 rolling from their mountain-springs
    With a soft inland murmur.—Once again
    Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
    That on a wild, secluded scene impress
    Thoughts of more deep seclusion, and connect
    The landscape with the quiet of...

  • Wisdom and Spirit of the universe!
    Thou Soul, that art the eternity of thought!
    And giv’st to forms and images a breath
    And everlasting motion! not in vain,
    By day or star-light, thus from my first dawn
    Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me
    The passions that build up our human soul—
    Not with the mean and vulgar works of Man,
    ...

  • Up! up, my friend! and quit your books,
      Or surely you ’ll grow double;
    Up! up, my friend! and clear your looks!
      Why all this toil and trouble?

    The sun, above the mountain’s head,
      A freshening lustre mellow
    Through all the long green fields has spread,
      His first sweet evening yellow.

    Books! ’t is a dull and endless...