A multitude of causes unknown to former times are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and unfitting it for all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor.

Any of that sound familiar?
Ringing any bells…?

So said the man whose birthday we remember today.
William Wordsworth, born on this date in 1770, helped (along with Coleridge) to launch the Romantic Age in English Literature.
So, those of you who suffered through those endless English Lit classes, and haven’t yet learned to recognize the beauty they were so desperately trying to impart unto thine angst-ridden teenage hearts… well…

Blame this guy!

But enough of my prattle.

Let us hear from the man, himself.

 

“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” 

“The music in my heart I bore
Long after it was heard no more.”

“Come grow old with me. The best is yet to be.”

“Wisdom is oft-times nearer when we stoop
Than when we soar.” 

 

 

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay: 
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed–and gazed–but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood, 
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.” 

 

Happy Birthday, William…

 

 

 

 

Image found here.