William Wordsworth, one of the greatest English poets, is known as a poet of nature. He was a pioneer of the Romantic Revival during the nineteenth century in England. His romantic poems are well known for simplicity of language in describing nature especially his native Lake district where he spent most of his life among lakes and hills. Nature for him was the embodiment of the Divine spirit and so he regarded nature as the greatest teacher. Most of his poems sought to establish a communication between Man and Nature showing boundless love of nature. Wordsworth was also the poet of man and in what he wrote about human life his greatness as a moralist was apparent. He believed that true poetry must be simple and free from artificial styles. He brought back a freshness to English Poetry. Though he had no humor and was singularly deficient in dramatic power, his lyrical and narrative poems are remarkable for their spontaneity, simplicity and charm.

Wordsworth’s early life is described in his long autobiographical poem ‘The Prelude’. He was born on 7th April 1770 at Cockermouth in the English country of Cumberland, a part of the Lake District. He lost both his parents in his early childhood and was brought up by his uncle and aunt. Wordsworth completed his school and college education under the guidance of his uncle.

The published works of Wordsworth ‘The Evening Walk’ and ‘Descriptive Sketches of a Pedestrian Tour in the Alps’ appeared in 1793.  From 1798 to 1805, Wordsworth with his friend Samuel Coleridge wrote a collection of poems, called ‘Lyrical Ballads’ and ‘Tintern Abbey’. By 1779 Wordsworth had gone to Cumberland a beautiful place in the Lake District. The beauties of that peaceful place inspired him and provided material for some of his best poems. There he wrote many poems including ‘Ruth and Lucy Gray’ in about the real and unpolished life of the country, as he believed that nature reflects the feelings of human beings. In 1800 Wordsworth published the second edition of Lyrical Ballads’.

Wordsworth married to Mary Hutchinson, a friend from his childhood in 1802. In 1805 he completed his long autobiographical poem called  ‘The Prelude’ and two years later came the best collection of his poems containing ‘Ode to Duty’, ‘Intimations of immortality’, The Idiot Boy’, ‘The Daffodils’, ‘The Solitary Reaper’ and ‘Yarrow Unvisited’. In 1813 Wordsworth’s family moved to Rydal Mount where he spent the rest of his life. There he published ‘The Excursion’ (nine books) including his best-known sonnets ‘The World is Too Much with Us’ and ‘Westminster Bridge’.

William Wordsworth received many degrees from various institutions and organizations like Oxford, Durham etc. He appointed as Poet Laureate, a poet of Royal Household appointed for life. Wordsworth passed away on 13th April 1850. The two well-known poems of Wordsworth are ‘The Daffodils’ and ‘On Westminster Bridge’.

       THE DAFFODILS

The poem Daffodils was first published in 1807 and it is said to have been composed three years earlier. The poem describes his personal feelings that he happened to see a host of golden daffodils fluttering and dancing in the breeze by the side of a lake. The flowers were tossing their heads in sprightly dance and the waves were dancing too, but the glee of the lovely flowers was far greater than that of the waves. The entire atmosphere was one of joy and this joy sank deep into the poet’s heart.

The first stanza of the poem:

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high ov’r vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.     

The sight had also another and a more important effect upon the mind of the poet so that it flashed upon his inward eye in his later life and filled his entire being with joy. Hence, the lovely sight of the daffodils proved a source not only of immediate pleasure and joy but also of lasting inspiration.

ON WESTMINISTER BRIDGE

 Like ‘The Daffodils’, ‘On Westminster Bridge’ is an illustration of the feelings and emotions. On one early morning Wordsworth happened to cross Westminster Bridge across the river Thames in London. London is a metropolis, full of din and bustle, but the poet had a strange experience about it while he was on the Westminster Bridge. London seemed to be fast asleep and there was a strange silence all around. The strange beauty of London early in the morning forms the subject matter of the poem.

The poem is a sonnet consisting of fourteen lines. The first seven lines are:    

 Earth has not anything to show more fair;

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

A sight so touching in its majesty:

This City now doth, like a garment, wear

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky;