William Wordsworth was born on 7 April, 1770 in Cockermouth, in Cumbria, northwest England. Wordsworth spent his early years in his beloved Lake District often with his sister, Dorothy. The English lakes could terrify as well as nurture, and as Wordsworth would write "I grew up fostered alike by beauty and by fear." After being schooled at Hawkshead he went to St. John's College, Cambridge but not liking the competitive nature of the place idled his way through saying he "was not for that hour, nor for that place." Whilst still at Cambridge he travelled to France. He was immediately taken by...

William Wordsworth was born on 7 April, 1770 in Cockermouth, in Cumbria, northwest England. Wordsworth spent his early years in his beloved Lake District often with his sister, Dorothy. The English lakes could terrify as well as nurture, and as Wordsworth would write "I grew up fostered alike by beauty and by fear." After being schooled at Hawkshead he went to St. John's College, Cambridge but not liking the competitive nature of the place idled his way through saying he "was not for that hour, nor for that place." Whilst still at Cambridge he travelled to France. He was immediately taken by...

Features a contemporary poet who selects and introduces a poet of the past. By their choice of poems and by the personal and critical reactions they express in their prefaces, the authors offer insights into their own work as well as providing an accessible and passionate introduction to the most important poets in our literature.

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.

Hart-Leap Well is a small spring of water, about five miles from Richmond in Yorkshire, and near the side of the road which leads from Richmond to Askrigg. Its name is derived from a remarkable chase, the memory of which is preserved by the monuments spoken of in the second Part of the following Poem, which monuments do now exist as I have there described them.

In youth from rock to rock I went From hill to hill, in discontent Of pleasure high and turbulent, Most pleas'd when most uneasy; But now my own delights I make, My thirst at every rill can slake, And gladly Nature's love partake Of thee, sweet Daisy

The History of Rob Roy is sufficiently known; his Grave is near the head of Loch Ketterine, in one of those small Pin-fold-like Burial-grounds, of neglected and desolate appearance, which the Traveller meets with in the Highlands of Scotland.