Lyrical Ballads William Wordsworth (best free novels txt) 📖

Lyrical Ballads

By William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Table of Contents Titlepage Imprint Preface Epigraph Lyrical Ballads Volume I Expostulation and Reply The Tables Turned Animal Tranquillity and Decay Goody Blake and Harry Gill The Last of the Flock Lines Left Upon a Seat in a Yew-Tree, Which Stands Near the Lake of Estwaithe, on a Desolate Part of the Shore, Yet Commanding a Beautiful Prospect The Foster-Mother’s Tale The Thorn I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX XXI XXII XXIII We Are Seven Anecdote for Fathers Lines Written at a Small Distance from My House, and Sent by My Little Boy to the Person to Whom They Are Addressed The Female Vagrant Lines Written in Early Spring Simon Lee, the Old Huntsman The Nightingale The Idiot Boy Love The Mad Mother The Ancient Mariner I II III IV V VI VII Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour Volume II Hart-Leap Well Part Second There Was a Boy The Brothers Ellen Irwin Strange Fits of Passion I Have Known She Dwelt Among th’ Untrodden Ways The Waterfall and the Eglantine The Oak and the Broom The Complaint of a Forsaken Indian Woman Lucy Gray ’Tis Said, That Some Have Died for Love The Idle Shepherd-Boys I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX Poor Susan Inscription Lines Written with a Pencil Upon a Stone in the Wall of the House (An Out-House) on the Island at Grasmere To a Sexton Andrew Jones Ruth Lines Written with a Slate-Pencil, Upon a Stone, the Largest of a Heap Lying Near a Deserted Quarry, Upon One of the Islands at Rydale Lines Written on a Tablet in a School The Two April Mornings The Fountain Nutting Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower The Pet-Lamb Written in Germany, on One of the Coldest Days of the Century The Childless Father The Old Cumberland Beggar Rural Architecture A Poet’s Epitaph A Fragment Poems on the Naming of Places Advertisement I II: To Joanna III IV V: To M. H. Lines Written When Sailing in a Boat at Evening Remembrance of Collins The Two Thieves A Whirl-Blast from Behind the Hill Song for the Wandering Jew Michael Appendix Endnotes Colophon Uncopyright Imprint

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Preface

The first volume of these Poems has already been submitted to general perusal. It was published, as an experiment, which, I hoped, might be of some use to ascertain, how far, by fitting to metrical arrangement a selection of the real language of men in a state of vivid sensation, that sort of pleasure and that quantity of pleasure may be imparted, which a Poet may rationally endeavour to impart.

I had formed no very inaccurate estimate of the probable effect of those Poems: I flattered myself that they who should be pleased with them would read them with more than common pleasure: and, on the other hand, I was well aware, that by those who should dislike them they would be read with more than common dislike. The result has differed from my expectation in this only, that I have pleased a greater number, than I ventured to hope I should please.

For the sake of variety, and from a consciousness of my own weakness, I was induced to request the assistance of a Friend, who furnished me with the Poems of the “Ancient Mariner,” the “Foster-Mother’s Tale,” the “Nightingale,” and the Poem entitled “Love.” I should not, however, have requested this assistance, had I not believed that the Poems of my Friend would in a great measure have the same tendency as my own, and that, though there would be found a difference, there would be found no discordance in the colours of our style; as our opinions on the subject of poetry do almost entirely coincide.

Several of my Friends are anxious for the success of these Poems from a belief, that, if the views with which they were composed were indeed realized, a class of Poetry would be produced, well adapted to interest mankind permanently, and not unimportant in the multiplicity, and in the quality of its moral relations: and on this account they have advised me to prefix a systematic defence of the theory upon which the poems were written. But I was unwilling to undertake the task, because I knew that on this occasion the Reader would look coldly upon my arguments, since I might be suspected of having been principally influenced by the selfish and foolish hope of reasoning him into an approbation of these particular Poems: and I was still more