The Great Poets: William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was born in Cockermouth, in the Lake District. His Lyrical Ballads, written in collaboration with Coleridge, was published in 1798, and shortly afterwards he settled in Dove Cottage, Grasmere, with his sister Dorothy. Inspired in his early manhood by the French Revolution, he grew disillusioned with revolutionary politics and in later life became decidedly conservative. He left a vast body of work, ranging from delicately simple lyrics to deeply meditative odes - his most fully-realised ambitious work being The Prelude. This collection is read by Oliver Ford Davies and Jasper Britton. INCLUDED IN The Great Poets - William Wordsworth * From Book One of The Prelude * Lines Written In Early Spring * From Book One of The Prelude * To My Sister * From Book Five of The Prelude * From Book Twelve of The Prelude * I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud * Goody Blake and Harry Gill : A True Story * Expostulation and Reply * The Tables Turned (An Evening Scene on the Same Subject) * There Was a Boy * Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour July 13, 1798 * Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Sept 3rd, 1802 * Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known * She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways * A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal * French Revolution: As It Appeared to Enthusiasts At Its Commencement * It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free, * The Solitary Reaper * She Was a Phantom of Delight * Surprised By Joy, Impatient As The Wind * The World is Too Much With Us * My heart leaps up when I behold * The Small Celandine * The Simplon Pass From Book Six of The Prelude * To The Cuckoo * Resolution and Independence * Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood