Inspiring Poems: “Lines Written in Early Spring”

  There is something about the simplicity of this poem that has always appealed to me...   I heard a thousand blended notes,   While in a grove I sate reclined,   In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts   Bring sad thoughts to the mind...             And despite the …

Looking Beyond (7) – Connecting with Nature

I had already started to look beyond scepticism (see Looking Beyond - 6) through my own experiences. Having discovered the poetry of Thomas Hardy, William Wordsworth and Emily Dickinson, I discovered a feeling for nature. Whilst struggling with scepticism at university, I used to cycle out to the fields to find some peace, and I …

You Led Me Beyond

~ You led me beyond City streets ~ To sunrise skies And forms ~ That filled life-giving Imagination ~ For beauty And for revelation. ~ A tribute to the poetry of William Wordsworth, with this poem by Wordworth particularly in mind: My heart leaps up when I behold⁠A Rainbow in the sky:So was it when …

Inspiring Poems: “Tintern Abbey”

In his book "Immortal Diamond", Richard Rohr says that "We are made for transcendence". I can still vividly remember reading these lines for the first time as a teenager in my bedroom in Wandsworth, London.  They took me out and away from suburban life and into this very sens of the transcendent : . “These beauteous …

A Year of Inspirers (4) – William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth inspired me with words about beauty and  transcendence... It is a beauteous Evening, calm and free; The holy time is quiet as a Nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquillity; The gentleness of heaven is on the Sea: Listen! the mighty Being is awake, And doth with …

7th April – Tribute to Wordsworth

7th April is the date of the birth of William Wordsworth, in 1770.  This year, 2020, marks the 150th anniversary of his birth.   . Often when the dreadful weight of this Unintelligible and weary world Oppressed me like a care, I turned thankful To your poetry - I felt it move Along my veins, inside …

Inspiring Poetry – “I loved the sun”

These beautiful lines come from Book II of "The Prelude": I beganTo love the sun, a Boy I lov'd the sun,Not as I since have lov'd him, as a pledgeAnd surety of our earthly life, a lightWhich while we view we feel we are alive;But, for this cause, that I had seen him layHis beauty …

Inspiring Poems: …the wren that sang so sweetly

William Wordsworth's great poem The Prelude is a kind of autobiography in poetry. In the early books he recalls childhood memories, and this detail, of listening to a single bird singing in an old church, I find particularly striking and beautiful... ...that single wrenWhich one day sang so sweetly in the naveOf the old church, …

Inspiring Poetry: “unconscious intercourse with beauty”

. William Wordsworth is one of the best writers to explore the connectedness of the human soul and the natural world. I see him as a kind of mystic who celebrates the powerful non-rational ways of knowing through sense experience, intuition and unconscious, instinctive response. These are some beautiful lines from The Prelude, Book 1 …

Inspiring Poetry: Intimations of Immortality

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,          Hath had elsewhere its setting               And cometh from afar;          Not in entire forgetfulness,          And not in utter nakedness,But trailing clouds …