The Book of Nature: Wordsworth's Poetry on Nature

By William Wordsworth

The Book of Nature - Wordsworth's Poetry on Nature is a sublime collection of the best nature poetry by poet-laureate William Wordsworth, housed in a convenient pocket-sized edition.

Along with many other Romantic poets of the time, the theme of nature features heavily in the work of Wordsworth - to him, it represented a living thing, a sublime teacher-god that contained all beauty and divine truth. Wordsworth expresses his view on the natural world through the poetry in this charming collection while articulating his relationship with nature and its essential connection with human beings.

Poems featured in this collection include:

- Influence of Natural Objects

- Lines Written in Early Spring

- My Heart Leaps Up

- Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey

- To the Clouds

Carefully curated by Read & Co. Books, this collection of twenty-one poems also features an introductory excerpt on William Wordsworth by Thomas Carlyle from his 1881 work Reminiscences. The perfect gift for poetry readers and nature lovers alike, this beautiful pocket edition is a wonderful book of posey for those who love reading on the go.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ragged Hand - Read & Co.
• Release date: Feb 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781528789387

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth was born on 7 April 1770 at Cockermouth, in the English Lake District, the son of a lawyer. He was one of five children and developed a close bond with his only sister, Dorothy, whom he lived with for most of his life. At the age of seventeen, shortly after the deaths of his parents, Wordsworth went to St John’s College, Cambridge, and after graduating visited Revolutionary France. Upon returning to England he published his first poem and devoted himself wholly to writing. He became great friends with other Romantic poets and collaborated with Samuel Taylor Coleridge on Lyrical Ballads. In 1843, he succeeded Robert Southey as Poet Laureate and died in the year ‘Prelude’ was finally published, 1850.

Book preview

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THE BOOK

OF NATURE

WORDSWORTH'S

POETRY ON NATURE

By

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Copyright © 2020 Ragged Hand

This edition is published by Ragged Hand,

an imprint of Read & Co. 

This book is copyright and may not be

reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available

from the British Library.

Read & Co. is part of Read Books Ltd.

For more information visit

www.readandcobooks.co.uk

Contents

William Wordsworth

INFLUENCE OF NATURAL OBJECTS.

LINES WRITTEN WHILE SAILING IN A BOAT AT EVENING.

A NIGHT-PIECE.

NUTTING.

LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING.

MY HEART LEAPS UP.

YEW-TREES.

SONNETS FROM THE RIVER DUDDON:

AFTER-THOUGHT

ADMONITION.

SONNETS

BELOVED VALE! I SAID, WHEN I SHALL CON.

IT IS A BEAUTEOUS EVENING, CALM AND FREE.

CALM IS ALL NATURE AS A RESTING WHEEL.

LINES COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY.

ODE

IT WAS AN APRIL MORNING:

FRESH AND CLEAR.

THERE IS AN EMINENCE.

ON THE BANKS OF A ROCKY STREAM.

TO THE CLOUDS.

TO THE MOON.

COMPOSED AT RYDAL ON MAY MORNING.

COMPOSED BY THE SEA-SHORE.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

William Wordsworth

"Mr. Wordsworth . . . had a dignified manner, with a deep and roughish but not unpleasing voice, and an exalted mode of speaking.

He had a habit of keeping his left hand in the bosom of his waistcoat; and in this attitude, except when he turned round to take one of the subjects of his criticism from the shelves (for his contemporaries were there also), he sat dealing forth his eloquent but hardly catholic judgments. . . . Walter Scott said that the eyes of Burns were the finest he ever saw. I cannot say the same of Mr. Wordsworth; that is, not in the sense of the beautiful, or even of the profound. But certainly I never beheld eyes which looked so inspired and supernatural.

They were like fires half burning, half smouldering with a sort of acrid fixture of regard, and seated at the further end of two caverns. One might imagine Ezekiel or Isaiah to have had such eyes.

The finest eyes, in every sense of the word, which I have ever seen in a man’s head (and I have seen many fine ones), are those of Thomas Carlyle."—1815.

An Excerpt from

The Autobiography of Leigh Hunt, 1850

"His features were large, and not suddenly expressive; they conveyed little idea of the ‘poetic fire’ usually associated with brilliant imagination. His eyes were mild and up-looking,