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Thought and theory must precede all salutary action; yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory.
Topic: Action
Source: None
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Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop than when we soar.
Topic: Advice / Experience / Wisdom
Source: None
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The cattle are grazing,
Their heads never raising:
There are forty feeding like one!
Topic: Animals
Source: The Cock is Crowing
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I look for ghosts; but none will force
Their way to me; 'tis falsely said
That even there was intercourse
Between the living and the dead.
Topic: Apparitions
Source: Affliction of Margaret
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Pictures deface walls more often than they decorate them.
Topic: Art and Artists
Source: None
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A famous man is Robin Hood
The English ballad-singer's joy.
Topic: Ballads
Source: Rob Roy's Grave
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And when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
Soul-animating strains--alas! too few.
Topic: Blindness
Source: Miscellaneous Sonnets, Pt. II, Scorn Not the Sonnet; Critic, You Have Frowned
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Brook! whose society the poet seeks,
Intent his wasted spirits to renew;
And whom the curious painter doth pursue
Through rocky passes, among flowery creeks,
And tracks thee dancing down thy water-breaks.
Topic: Brooks
Source: Brook! Whose Society the Poet Seeks
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In modern business it is not the crook who is to be feared most, it is the honest man who doesn't know what he is doing.
Topic: Business
Source: None
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Much converse do I find in thee,
Historian of my infancy!
Float near me; do not yet depart!
Dead times revive in thee:
Thou bring'st, gay creature as thou art!
A solemn image to my heart.
Topic: Butterflies
Source: To a Butterfly
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A cheerful life is what the Muses love,
A soaring spirit is their prime delight.
Topic: Cheerfulness
Source: From the Dark Chambers
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The child is father of the man.
Topic: Children / Youth
Source: None
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The cattle are grazing,
Their heads never raising:
There are forty feeding like one!
Topic: Cows
Source: The Cock is Crowing
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List--'twas the cuckoo--O, with what delight
Heard I that voice! and catch it now, though faint,
Far off and faint, and melting into air,
Yet not to be mistaken. Hark again!
Those louder cries give notice that the bird,
Although invisible as Echo's self,
Is wheeling hitherward.
Topic: Cuckoos
Source: The Cuckoo at Laverna
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O blithe New-comer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice;
O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?
Topic: Cuckoos
Source: To the Cuckoo
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A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Topic: Daffodils
Source: I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
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Bright flowers, whose home is everywhere
Bold in maternal nature's care
And all the long year through the heir
Of joy and sorrow,
Methinks that there abides in thee
Some concord with humanity,
Given to no other flower I see
The forest through.
Topic: Daisies
Source: To the Daisy
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The poet's darling.
Topic: Daisies
Source: To the Daisy
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We meet thee, like a pleasant thought,
When such are wanted.
Topic: Daisies
Source: To the Daisy
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Thou unassuming Commonplace
Of Nature.
Topic: Daisies
Source: To the Same Flower
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The bane of all that dread the Devil!
Topic: Devil
Source: The Idiot Boy (st. 67)
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As thou these ashes, little brook! will bear
Into the Avon, Avon to the tide
Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas,
Into main ocean they, this deed accurst,
An emblem yields to friends and enemies
How the bold teacher's doctrine, sanctified
By truth, shall spread throughout the world dispersed.
Topic: Doctrine
Source: Ecclesiastical Sketches (pt. II, Wicliffe)
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I heard a Stock-dove sing or say
His homely tale, this very day;
His voice was buried among trees,
Yet to be come at by the breeze:
He did not cease; but cooed--and cooed:
And somewhat pensively he wooed:
He sang of love, with quiet blending,
Slow to begin, and never ending;
Of serious faith, and inward glee;
That was the song,--the song for me!
Topic: Doves
Source: O Nightingale! Thou Surely Art
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Huge and mighty forms that do not live like living men, moved slowly through the mind by day and were trouble to my dreams.
Topic: Dreams
Source: None
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The primal duties shine aloft, like stars;
The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless
Are scattered at the feet of Man, like flowers.
Topic: Duty
Source: Excursion (bk. IX)
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Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice;
The confidence of reason give;
And in the light of truth thy
Bondman let me live!
Topic: Duty
Source: Ode to Duty
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Stern Daughter of the Voice of God.
Topic: Duty
Source: Ode to Duty
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Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring, and reprove.
Topic: Duty
Source: Ode to Duty
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Like--but oh! how different!
Topic: Echo
Source: Yes, it Was the Mountain Echo
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The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration.
Topic: Evening
Source: It is a Beauteous Evening
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And hear the mighty stream of tendency
Uttering, for elevation of our thought,
A clear sonorous voice, inaudible
To the vast multitude.
Topic: Evolution
Source: Excursion (IX, 87)
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Faith is a passionate intuition.
Topic: Faith
Source: None
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Sad fancies do we then affect,
In luxury of disrespect
To our own prodigal excess
Of too familiar happiness.
Topic: Fancy
Source: Ode to Lycoris
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Sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart.
Topic: Feeling
Source: Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey
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O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live.
Topic: Fire
Source: Ode (IV, 53), (Knight's edition)
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Meek Walton's heavenly memory.
Topic: Fishermen
Source: Ecclesiastical Sonnets (pt. III, no. 5)
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Methought I say the footsteps of a throne.
- William Wordsworth,
Topic: Footsteps
Source: Miscellaneous Sonnets--Methought I Saw the Footsteps of a Throne
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Golf is a day spent in a round of strenuous idleness.
Topic: Golf
Source: None
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I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds
With coldness still returning;
Alas! the gratitude of men
Hath often left me mourning.
Topic: Gratitude
Source: Simon Lee
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From the body of one guilty deed a thousand ghostly fears and haunting thoughts proceed.
Topic: Guilt
Source: None
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Never to blend our pleasure or our pride
With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.
Topic: Humanity
Source: Hart-Leap Well (pt. II)
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But hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity.
Topic: Humanity
Source: Tintern Abbey
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A few strong instincts and a few plain rules.
Topic: Instinct
Source: Alas! What Boots the Long Laborious Quest?
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Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on,
Through words and things, a dim and perilous way.
Topic: Intellect
Source: Borderers, written 18 years before "Excursion"
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The intellectual power, through words and things,
Went sounding on, a dim and perilous way!
Topic: Intellect
Source: Excursion (bk. III)
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On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love.
Topic: Kindness
Source: Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey
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That best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.
Topic: Kindness
Source: None
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Hail to thee, far above the rest
In joy of voice and pinion!
Thou, linnet! in thy green array,
Presiding spirit here to-day,
Dost lead the revels of the May;
And this is thy dominion.
Topic: Linnets
Source: The Green Linnet
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Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.
Topic: Literary
Source: None
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This flower that first appeared as summer's guest
Preserves her beauty 'mid autumnal leaves
And to her mournful habits fondly cleaves.
Topic: Love Lies Bleeding
Source: Love Lies Bleeding
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