This is a very impressive collection of some of the best sonnets from the pen of the incomparable William Wordsworth. The appreciation that Wordsworth had for the beauty of his surroundings is vibrantly exhibited in these selections, as are his feelings on love, friendship, society, conflict, history, the supernatural and indeed the art of poetry itself. And what better vehicle for the elegant articulation of a master poet’s thoughts and inspirations than the sonnet, an art form ideally suited to assertion, verbalization and contemplation.
In these sonnets, we witness Wordsworth’s poetic expertise at its best in superb descriptions of nature’s splendor which he astutely juxtaposes with his reflections on a world that is “too much with us,” a world in which, “man for brother man has ceased to feel.”
The sanctuary that Wordsworth found and which forms the basis for the inspiration displayed in many of these sonnets was the magnificent Lake District of England, which he depicted as, “At happy distance from Earth’s groaning field, / Where ruthless mortals wage incessant wars.” Such a sanctuary the poet would have wished for us all, and indeed provided the means for at least our vicarious enjoyment in the form of these enduring and timeless works of art.
– Summary by Bruce Kachuk
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1:
Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room
2:
Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned
3:
Written in very Early Youth
4:
I watch, and long have watched, with calm regret
5:
How clear, how keen, how marvellously bright
6:
While not a leaf seems faded; while the fields
7:
There is a pleasure in poetic pains
8:
Oxford, May 30, 1820
9:
A Parsonage in Oxfordshire
10:
Hail, Twilight, sovereign of one peaceful hour!
11:
Mark the concentred hazels that enclose
12:
Composed at Rydal on May Morning, 1838
13:
Though the bold wings of Poesy affect
14:
Pelion and Ossa flourish side by side
15:
To Sleep
16:
Fond words have oft been spoken to thee, Sleep!
17:
The River Eden, Cumberland
18:
Surprised by joy - impatient as the Wind
19:
Her only pilot the soft breeze, the boat
20:
With Ships the sea was sprinkled far and nigh
21:
Where lies the Land to which yon Ship must go?
22:
Sole listener, Duddon! to the Breeze that played
23:
What aspect bore the Man who roved or fled
24:
Hail to the fields - with dwellings sprinkled o'er
25:
The Stepping-Stones
26:
Whence that low voice? - A whisper from the heart
27:
I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide
28:
Brook! whose society the poet seeks
29:
Methinks that to some vacant hermitage
30:
There is a little unpretending Rill
31:
Written upon a Blank Leaf in "The Complete Angler"
32:
Oh Friend! I know not which way I must look
33:
The world is too much with us; late and soon
34:
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour
35:
Great men have been among us; hands that penned
36:
It is not to be thought of that the Flood
37:
When I have borne in memory what has tamed
38:
Near Dover
39:
Vanguard of Liberty, ye men of Kent
40:
Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland
41:
An Invasion Being Expected, October 1803
42:
Composed in the Valley near Dover, on the Day of Landing
43:
Not Love, not War, nor the tumultuous swell
44:
To Toussaint L'Ouverture
45:
When Philoctetes in the Lemnian Isle
46:
When haughty expectations prostrate lie
47:
O'er the wide earth, on mountain and on plain
48:
On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic
49:
By Grasmere Lake
50:
Composed by the Sea-Side, Near Calais
51:
As leaves are to the tree whereon they grow
52:
Adieu, Rydalian Laurels! that have grown
53:
The Trosachs
54:
Admonition
55:
The forest huge of ancient Caledon
56:
Aix-la-Chapelle
57:
Between Namur and Liège
58:
Composed on Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1802
59:
Roman Antiquities
60:
The Monument commonly called Long Meg and Her Daughters, near the River Eden
61:
There! said a Stripling, pointing with meet pride
62:
Mary Queen of Scots
63:
In sight of the Town of Cockermouth
64:
A Place of Burial in the South of Scotland
65:
Most sweet it is with unuplifted eyes
66:
In King's College Chapel, Cambridge
67:
They dreamt not of a perishable home
68:
Rural Ceremony
69:
Places of Worship
70:
Who but is pleased to watch the moon on high
71:
The Shepherd, looking eastward, softly said
72:
With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the sky
73:
The stars are mansions built by Nature's hand
74:
To a Snow-drop
75:
Hark! 'tis the Thrush, undaunted, undeprest
76:
I dropped my pen; and listened to the Wind
77:
It is a beauteous evening, calm and free
78:
To the Cuckoo
79:
Near Anio's stream, I spied a gentle Dove
80:
Composed on a May Morning
81:
Personal Talk
82:
Yet life, you say, "is life; we have seen and see"
