Wordsworth's Birthday

[Anonymous No.12898453]

>It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
>The holy time is quiet as a nun
>Breathless with adoration...
249 today, lads. Say something nice--

[Anonymous No.12898562]

And Wordsworth, in a rather long Excursion
(I think the quarto holds five hundred pages),
Has given a sample from the vasty version
Of his new system to perplex the sages;
'Tis poetry—at least by his assertion,
And may appear so when the dog-star rages—
And he who understands it would be able
To add a story to the Tower of Babel.

[Anonymous No.12898670]

>>12898562
Ah, Byron.
I suppose any reference at all is 'nice'.

[Anonymous No.12898675]

Tintern Abbey is a great poem.

[Anonymous No.12898709]

>>12898675
I actually love some of his early longish stuff- An Evening Walk, for instance.

[Anonymous No.12898720]

"To A Sexton" (1815)
Let thy wheel-barrow alone.
Wherefore, Sexton, piling still
In thy bone-house bone on bone?
'Tis already like a hill
In a field of battle made,
Where three thousand skulls are laid.
-These died in peace each with the other,
Father, Sister, Friend, and Brother.

Mark the spot to which I point!
From this platform eight feet square
Take not even a finger-joint:
Andrew's whole fire-side is there.
Here, alone, before thine eyes,
Simon's sickly Daughter lies
From weakness, now, and pain defended,
Whom he twenty winters tended.

Look but at the gardener's pride,
How he glories, when he sees
Roses, lilies, side by side,
Violets in families.
By the heart of Man, his tears,
By his hopes and by his fears,
Thou, old Grey-beard! art the Warden
Of a far superior garden.

Thus then, each to the other dear,
Let them all in quiet lie,
Andrew there and Susan here,
Neighbours in mortality.
And should I live through sun and rain
Seven widow'd years without my Jane,
O Sexton, do not then remove her,
Let one grave hold the Lov'd and Lover!

[Anonymous No.12898730]

>>12898453
He cured J.S. Mill of overexertion, and one can see how.

[Anonymous No.12898741]

>>12898720
Does anyone know any other poems comparing graveyards to gardens or interred bodies to plants? I'm sure there are earlier examples of this but I can't think of any

[Anonymous No.12898747]

>>12898562
based Lord Incest

[Anonymous No.12898753]

>>12898562
What an ungrateful shit!

[Anonymous No.12898793]

>>12898741
Not 100% of sure of a specific example, but check out Charlotte Smith. Works from Elegiac Sonnets such as "Written in a Churchyard at Middleton in Sussex," Beachy Head, maybe even her children's poetry might be of interest.

Back to Wordsworth:
"Written with a Slate-pencil, on a Stone, on the Side of the Mountain of Black Comb"
Stay, bold Adventurer; rest awhile thy limbs
On this commodious Seat! for much remains
Of hard ascent before thou reach the top
Of this huge Eminence,——from blackness named,
And, to far-travelled storms of sea and land,
A favourite spot of tournament and war!
But thee may no such boisterous visitants
Molest; may gentle breezes fan thy brow;
And neither cloud conceal, nor misty air
Bedim, the grand terraqueous spectacle,
From centre to circumference, unveiled!
Know, if thou grudge not to prolong thy rest,
That, on the summit whither thou art bound,
A geographic Labourer pitched his tent,
With books supplied and instruments of art,
To measure height and distance; lonely task,
Week after week pursued!—To him was given
Full many a glimpse (but sparingly bestowed
On timid man) of Nature's processes
Upon the exalted hills. He made report
That once, while there he plied his studious work
Within that canvass Dwelling, suddenly
The many-coloured map before his eyes
Became invisible: for all around
Had darkness fallen—unthreatened, unproclaimed—
As if the golden day itself had been
Extinguished in a moment; total gloom,
In which he sate alone with unclosed eyes
Upon the blinded mountain's silent top!

[Anonymous No.12898820]

>>12898793
>check out Charlotte Smith
This looks right up my alley, thank you. Can't believe I haven't heard of her before.

[Anonymous No.12898846]

>>12898793
How does he do it? This poem matches feelings I can't give names.

[Anonymous No.12898952]

>>12898741
>interred bodies to plants
well, in Keats' Isabella; or the Pot of Basil the heroin is left caressing a pot of basil wherein the severed head of her lover rests- when re-reading the poem (once the plot has been resolved, i.e.) one detects Keats playing with this motif again and again.

[Anonymous No.12898964]

>>12898846
this. Should we really stop reading and writing bros and take a vacation???

[Anonymous No.12898982]

>>12898562
t. poetaster in comparison

[Anonymous No.12899019]

Fourth poem from "Moods of My Own Mind" (again 1815)

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

And then from a letter by WW concerning the poem:
>The poem rests entirely upon two recollections of childhood, one that of a splendour in the objects of sense which is passed away, and the other an indisposition to bend to the law of death, as applying to our particular case. A Reader who has not a vivid recollection of these feelings having existed in his mind cannot understand that poem. … And some of those images of sense which are dwelt upon as holding that relation to immortality and infinity which I have before alluded to; if a person has not been in the way of receiving these images, it is not likely that he can form such an adequate conception of them as will bring him into lively sympathy with the Poet

[Anonymous No.12899029]

I should add my thanks to OP for making this thread, I would have totally missed this birthday otherwise.

[Anonymous No.12899151]

>>12898964
It's not just about going out into nature, though anything other than sitting around at your desk refreshing 4chan should help. Wordsworth could mentally write and remember decent chunks of blank verse while walking. (He also walked absurdly fast.)

[Anonymous No.12899156]

I always admired the covers, nice to see that the man behind them get his due recognition

[Anonymous No.12899165]

>you will never be Thomas De Quincey and fill this up with books

[Anonymous No.12899181]

Has anyone watched this? I remember liking it. A professor gave me a VHS and I watched it in a viewing room in the library.

[Anonymous No.12899295]

>>12899151
In English Traits Emerson visits him as an old but still sprightly man (wearing green spectacles!) in just this manifestation, anon. What's odd about this interview is that while pacing quickly about reciting verses he predicts the next 25 years of (what is now) American history with frightful accuracy. He just tosses it off!

[Anonymous No.12899331]

>>12899029
My pleasure, m8, and thanks. The day is significant to me otherwise so I never forget it.

[Anonymous No.12900026]

>>12899295
This thread has been full of surprises for me. I had no idea they met.

[Anonymous No.12900319]

>>12900026
Twice- in 1833 and again in 1847 (W lives till 1850- the first of the big six after Blake to be born, and the last to die). Pic'd from the 1833 interview. This little book was published ca. 1850 and deserves to be better known. Emerson also met Landor, Coleridge, the Iron Duke, and of course Carlyle among many others.

[Anonymous No.12900354]

>>12900319
Thanks for all this. Would you recommend reading Emerson’s book?

[Anonymous No.12900388]

>>12900354
Absolutely. Though highly critical it's done in the best of spirits. Read somewhere that in the way of the representation of 'national character' Emerson did for England what DeTocqueville did for the U.S.

[Anonymous No.12900624]

Wrote too many great poems to count

Every young person, especially young men, I think, should read Character of the Happy Warrior

[Anonymous No.12901968]

>>12900624
This is such a good selection, anon. Counter-intuitive, late, but definitely one all young persons should read. Re-reading it put me in mind of his Elegiac Stanzas on Beaumont's painting of Peele Castle in a Storm- written just after getting word that his favorite brother John was lost at sea.

[Anonymous No.12901992]

really good short bio
rec

[Anonymous No.12902117]

>>12899019
Picasso loved this poem, and the Child is Father to the Man is not only the subject of a Beach Boys tune, but the entire basis of Psychoanalysis!

[Anonymous No.12902235]

>>12898846
the word is ineffable

[Anonymous No.12902250]

>>12898747
>ywn be such a chad that even relatives lust after your cock

[Anonymous No.12902320]

>>12900319
>He replied, he never was in haste to publish; partly, because he corrected a good deal, and every alteration is ungraciously received after printing
Fucking kek. Classic Wordsworth. The sonnet Wordsworth points out as a favorite:

We can endure that He should waste our lands,
Despoil our temples, and by sword and flame
Return us to the dust from which we came;
Such food a Tyrant's appetite demands:
And we can brook the thought that by his hands
Spain may be overpowered, and he possess,
For his delight, a solemn wilderness
Where all the brave lie dead. But, when of bands
Which he will break for us he dares to speak,
Of benefits, and of a future day
When our enlightened minds shall bless his sway;
'Then', the strained heart of fortitude proves weak;
Our groans, our blushes, our pale cheeks declare
That he has power to inflict what we lack strength to bear.

[Anonymous No.12902502]

I met an aged, aged man
Upon the lonely moor:
I knew I was a gentleman,
And he was but a boor.
So I stopped and roughly questioned him,
"Come, tell me how you live!"
But his words impressed my ear no more
Than if it were a sieve.

He said, "I look for soap-bubbles,
That lie among the wheat,
And bake them into mutton-pies,
And sell them in the street.
I sell them unto men," he said,
"Who sail on stormy seas;
And that's the way I get my bread –
A trifle, if you please."

But I was thinking of a way
To multiply by ten,
And always, in the answer, get
The question back again.
I did not hear a word he said,
But kicked that old man calm,
And said, "Come, tell me how you live!"
And pinched him in the arm.

His accents mild took up the tale:
He said, "I go my ways,
And when I find a mountain-rill,
I set it in a blaze.
And thence they make a stuff they call
Rowland's Macassar Oil;
But fourpence-halfpenny is all
They give me for my toil."

But I was thinking of a plan
To paint one's gaiters green,
So much the color of the grass
That they could ne'er be seen.
I gave his ear a sudden box,
And questioned him again,
And tweaked his grey and reverend locks,
And put him into pain.

He said, "I hunt for haddock's eyes
Among the heather bright,
And work them into waistcoat-buttons
In the silent night.
And these I do not sell for gold,
Or coin or silver-mine,
But for a copper-halfpenny,
And that will purchase nine.

"I sometimes dig for buttered rolls,
Or set limed twigs for crabs;
I sometimes search the flowery knolls
For wheels of hansom cabs.
And that's the way" (he gave a wink)
"I get my living here,
And very gladly will I drink
Your Honour's health in beer."

I heard him then, for I had just
Completed my design
To keep the Menai bridge from rust
By boiling it in wine.
I duly thanked him, ere I went,
For all his stories queer,
But chiefly for his kind intent
To drink my health in beer.

And now if e'er by chance I put
My fingers into glue,
Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot
Into a left-hand shoe;
Or if a statement I aver
Of which I am not sure,
I think of that strange wanderer
Upon the lonely moor.

[Anonymous No.12902550]

>>12902320
Well, yes and no: he's 63 at the time.

[Anonymous No.12902702]

>>12902320
Interesting. Brings Dickinson to mind, oddly.

[Anonymous No.12902809]

>>12898453
he's an aries?!

[Anonymous No.12902824]

>>12902809
most physically aggressive sign of the Zodiac, yo

[Anonymous No.12903261]

>>12902809
He was a far harder man, a more manly man than a brief scanning of his verse might lead one to believe. As
>>12899151
points out he was a rabid walker, took many days long hikes almost annually, and kept his amazing health till almost the very end, outliving by far all the major first and second generation 'Romantics'

[Anonymous No.12903279]

>>12902809
>he thinks sun signs indicate behavior and personality
>tropical astrology

[Anonymous No.12903511]

>>12902550
Classic as in, he would frequently have his editor redo presses for revisions, and his sense of indignation that these changes would be received "ungraciously" is funny.

[Anonymous No.12903671]

>>12903511
1805 Prelude was composed then published with relative speed and remains the 'classic' despite the much later revision and 'official' (re)published version. Let that stand for the 'no' aspect of my response; otherwise youre fairly correct.
Can't help but recollect Pope's injunction to wait 10 yrs before publishing one's verse in the sense that there was a time when one could be reasonably sure that the world would remain more or less the same and so receive one's ancient thing as if timely. Not even remotely the same these days, even when dealing with perennial themes.

[Anonymous No.12903804]

Absolute pontificating bollocks, putrescent bloviating excrement on the chest of a prepubescent asian

[Anonymous No.12904112]

>>12903804
3 nice pentameters if a little thick, m8

[Anonymous No.12904176]

>tfw he never wrote finished The Recluse thus bringing Man into a new dawn of understanding his attunemnet to Nature

[Anonymous No.12905215]

OP here
Enjoyed the thread, lads
Nice to know there's at least a few core Wordsworth readers left on the 4channel- till next year when I'll be back to mark the big 2-5-0.

[Anonymous No.12905274]

>>12905215
If I have time next year, I might try to organize a Prelude reading group or something.

[Anonymous No.12905279]

>>12905215
Thanks OP. You guys have convinced me to go and pick up a small collection of Wordsworth's poetry I saw being given a way at the library.

[Anonymous No.12905298]

>>12902824
Wrong. Aries is aggressive, but Aries corresponds to the head because Aries expresses itself martial energy mainly cerebrally and through communication. They are very argumentative, and always stuck in their heads hatching new plans.

[Anonymous No.12905357]

>>12905298
That fills Wordsworth's bill then for starters..

[Anonymous No.12905366]

>>12905279
I would imagine copies in those circumstances are most everywhere. I got a complete Oxford with cover intact from the early 70's for $12 not too long ago at a used shop.

[Anonymous No.12905389]

>>12905274
Would gladly participate
It's an easy to read very enjoyable poem about his coming of age as a poet while the French Revolution is going on- the excitement of those times is very keenly felt when reading it!