The Recluse

By William Wordsworth

“The Recluse” is part one of an unfinished philosophical poem by William Wordsworth. It was intended to be a long three-part epic but, although planned in his late 20s, Wordsworth went to his grave at 80 years old having written to some completion only "The Prelude" and the second part "The Excursion", and leaving no more than fragments of the rest. “The Recluse” was to be Wordsworth 's three-part masterpiece, but tragically remains uncompleted. We are republishing this short piece with introductory biographical excerpts from Leigh Hunt, Anna Marie Hall and Thomas Carlyle. This little book constitutes a must-read for poetry lovers and is not to be missed by those with an interest in the life and work of this celebrated English Romantic poet.

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) was an English Romantic poet famous for helping to usher in the Romantic Age in English literature with the publication of “Lyrical Ballads” (1798), which he co-wrote with Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Wordsworth was poet laureate of Britain between 1843 until his death in 1850. Other notable works by this author include: “The Tables Turned”, “The Thorn”, and “Lines Composed A Few Miles above Tintern Abbey”.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ragged Hand - Read & Co.
• Release date: Feb 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781528789417

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 RECLUSE

By

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

First published in 1880

Copyright © 2020 Ragged Hand

This edition is published by Ragged Hand,

an imprint of Read & Co. 

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from the British Library.

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Contents

William Wordsworth

PREFACE

BOOK FIRST

HOME AT GRASMERE

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

By Leigh Hunt

". . . He (Wordsworth) talked well in his way; with veracity, easy brevity, and force, as a wise tradesman would of his tools and workshop,—and as no unwise