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Like an army defeated
The snow hath retreated,
And now doth fare ill
On the top of the bare hill;
The Ploughboy is whooping--anon--anon!
There's joy in the mountains:
There's life in the fountains;
Small clouds are sailing,
Blue sky prevailing;
The rain is over and gone.
Topic: March
Source: Written in March
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Up from the sea, the wild north wind is blowing
Under the sky's gray arch;
Smiling I watch the shaken elm boughs, knowing
It is the wind of March.
Topic: March
Source: Written in March
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Sweet Mercy! to the gates of Heaven
This minstrel lead, his sins forgiven;
The rueful conflict, the heart riven
With vain endeavour,
And memory of earth's bitter leaven
Effaced forever.
Topic: Mercy
Source: Thoughts Suggested on the Banks of the Nith
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I listened, motionless and still; And, as I mounted up the hill, The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more.
Topic: Music
Source: None
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For I have learned to look on nature, not as in the hour of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes the still, sad music of humanity.
Topic: Nature
Source: None
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She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love.
Topic: Obscurity
Source: She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways
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And beauty, for confiding youth,
Those shocks of passion can prepare
That kill the bloom before its time,
And blanch, without the owner's crime,
The most resplendent hair.
Topic: Passion
Source: Lament of Mary, Queen of Scots
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The feather, whence the pen
Was shaped that traced the lives of these good men,
Dropped from an Angel's wing.
Topic: Pen
Source: Ecclesiastical Sonnets (pt. III, V, Walton's Book of Lives)
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Why should not grave Philosophy be styled.
Herself, a dreamer of a kindred stock,
A dreamer, yet more spiritless and dull?
Topic: Philosophy
Source: Excursion (bk. III)
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The bosom-weight, your stubborn gift,
That no philosophy can lift.
Topic: Philosophy
Source: Presentiments
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What is pride? A whizzing rocket that would emulate a star.
Topic: Pride
Source: None
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A man he seems of cheerful yesterdays,
And confident to-morrows.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: The Excursion
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The child is father of the man.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: My Heart Leaps Up
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Be wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: My Heart Leaps Up
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How blessings brighten as they take their flight.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: My Heart Leaps Up
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How commentators each dark passage shun,
And hold their farthing candle to the sun.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: My Heart Leaps Up
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Life's cares are comforts; such by heaven design'd
He that has none, must make them or be wretched.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: My Heart Leaps Up
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Thoughts shut up want air,
And spoil like bales unopen'd to the sun.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: My Heart Leaps Up
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We take no note of time
But from its loss.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: My Heart Leaps Up
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In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts bring sad thoughts to the mind.
Topic: Reverie
Source: None
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From Stirling Castle we had seen
The mazy Forth unravelled;
Had trod the banks of Clyde and Tay,
And with the Tweed had travelled;
And when we came to Clovenford,
Then said "my winsome marrow,"
"Whate'er betide, we'll turn aside,
And see the braes of Yarrow."
Topic: Rivers
Source: Yarrow Unvisited
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Now when the primrose makes a splendid show,
And lilies face the March-winds in full blow,
And humbler growths as moved with one desire
Put on, to welcome spring, their best attire,
Poor Robin is yet flowerless; but how gay
With his red stalks upon this sunny day!
Topic: Robins
Source: Poor Robin
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Art thou the bird whom Man loves best,
The pious bird with the scarlet breast,
Our little English Robin;
The bird that comes about our doors
When autumn winds are sobbing?
Topic: Robins
Source: The Redbreast Chasing the Butterfly
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Stay, little cheerful Robin! stay,
And at my easement sing,
Though it should prove a farewell lay
And this our parting spring.
. . . .
Then, little Bird, this boon confer,
Come, and my requiem sing,
Nor fail to be the harbinger
Of everlasting spring.
Topic: Robins
Source: To a Redbreast--In Sickness
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Lady of the Mere,
Sole-sitting by the shores of old romance.
Topic: Romance
Source: A Narrow Girdle of Rough Stones and Crags
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Hail to the crown by Freedom shaped--to gird
An English sovereign's brow! and to the throne
Whereon he sits! whose deep foundations lie
In veneration and the people's love.
Topic: Royalty
Source: Excursion (bk. IV)
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The marble index of a mind forever
Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.
Topic: Sculpture
Source: The Prelude (bk. III)
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There is a luxury in self-dispraise;
And inward self-disparagement affords
To meditative spleen a grateful feast.
Topic: Self-examination
Source: The Excursion (bk. IV)
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Small service is true service while it lasts:
Of humblest friends, bright Creature! scorn not one;
The Daisy, by the shadow that it casts,
Protects the lingering dew drop from the Sun.
Topic: Service
Source: To a Child: Written in Her Album
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Or shipwrecked, kindles on the coast
False fires, that others may be lost.
Topic: Shipwreck
Source: To the Lady Fleming
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The soft blue sky did never melt
Into his heart; he never felt
The witching of the soft blue sky!
Topic: Sky
Source: Peter Bell (pt. I, st. 15)
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And she hath smiles to earth unknown--
Smiles that with motion of their own
Do spread, and sink, and rise.
Topic: Smiles
Source: I met Louisa in the Shade (st. 2), (afterwards cancelled by him, not found in complete edition of po
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One great society alone on earth: the noble living and the noble dead.
Topic: Society
Source: None
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My eyes are dim with childish tears,
My heart is idly stirred,
For the same sound is in my ears
Which in those days I heard.
Topic: Sound
Source: The Fountain
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Behold, within the leafy shade,
Those bright blue eggs together laid!
On me the chance-discovered sight
Gleamed like a vision of delight.
Topic: Sparrows
Source: The Sparrow's Nest
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A tale in everything.
Topic: Story Telling
Source: Simon Lee
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He could afford to suffer
With those whom he saw suffer.
Topic: Suffering
Source: Excursion (I, 370)
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The swan on still St. Mary's lake
Float double, swan and shadow!
Topic: Swans
Source: Yarrow Unvisited
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The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door.
Topic: Sweetness
Source: Lucy Gray (st. 2)
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Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will.
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still.
Topic: Thames River
Source: Sonnet--Composed upon Westminster Bridge
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At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears,
Hangs a thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years.
Topic: Thrushes
Source: Reverie of Poor Susan
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And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.
Topic: Thrushes
Source: The Tables Turned
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Meek Nature's evening comment on the shows
That for oblivion that their daily birth
From all the fuming vanities of earth.
Topic: Vanity
Source: Sonnet--Sky--Prospect from the Plain of France
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Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee,
And was the safeguard of the West.
Topic: Venice
Source: Sonnet on the extinction of the Venetian Republic
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But shapes that come not at an earthly call,
Will not depart when mortal voices bid.
Topic: Visions
Source: Dion (V)
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Two voices are there; one is of the sea,
One of the mountains: each a mighty Voice.
Topic: Voice
Source: Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland
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There's something in a flying horse,
There's something in a huge balloon.
Topic: Wonders
Source: Peter Bell (prologue, st. 1)
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Among the dwellings framed by birds
In field or forest with nice care,
Is none that with the little wren's
In snugness may compare.
Topic: Wrens
Source: A Wren's Nest
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Wrongs unredressed, or insults unavenged.
Topic: Wrongs
Source: The Excursion (bk. III, l. 377)
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Of vast circumference and gloom profound,
This solitary Tree! A living thing
Produced too slowly ever to decay;
Of form and aspect too magnificent
To be destroyed.
Topic: Yew
Source: Yew-Trees
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