A Poet! He Hath Put his Heart to School

William Wordsworth 1770 (Wordsworth House) – 1850 (Cumberland)



.    A poet!--He hath put his heart to school,
   Nor dares to move unpropped upon the staff
   Which art hath lodged within his hand--must laugh
   By precept only, and shed tears by rule.
   Thy Art be Nature; the live current quaff,
   And let the groveller sip his stagnant pool,
   In fear that else, when Critics grave and cool
   Have killed him, Scorn should write his epitaph.
   How does the Meadow-flower its bloom unfold?
  Because the lovely little flower is free
  Down to its root, and, in that freedom, bold;
  And so the grandeur of the Forest-tree
  Comes not by casting in a formal mould,
  But from its own divine vitality.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 26, 2023

33 sec read
107

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABBABAABCDCDCD
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 638
Words 112
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth was the husband of Eva Bartok. more…

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