Animal Tranquility and Decay
by William Wordsworth

English Romantic poet and poet-laureate, whose Lyrical Ballads (1798), first published anonymously with contributions by his friend Coleridge, marked an important turning point in the history of English literature. Some of his many well-known poems include 'The Brothers', 'Michael' and the "Lucy" poems: 'She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways', 'Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known', 'A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal' and 'Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower'. His other great work, the philosophical-autobiographical poem The Prelude was published posthumously in 1850. He also published two poems dealing with the sublime and the picturesque; An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches (both in 1793), and his one and only play The Borders (1842). Wordsworth's name, perhaps even more so than that of his friend Coleridge, remains to this day almost synonymous, in England, with Romanticism itself.

← Previous Poem William Wordsworth Next Poem →

Animal Tranquility and Decay
by William Wordsworth

A Sketch

The little hedgerow birds,
That peck along the road, regard him not.
He travels on, and in his face, his step,
His gait, is one expression; every limb,
His look and bending figure, all bespeak
A man who does not move with pain, but moves
With thought. -He is insensibly subdued
To settled quiet: he is one by whom
All effort seems forgotten; one to whom
Long patience hath such mild composure given
That patience now doth seem a thing of which
He hath no need. He is by nature led
To peace so perfect, that the young behold
With envy what the Old Man hardly feels.

← Previous Poem William Wordsworth Next Poem →

Animal Tranquility and Decay by William Wordsworth