Wordsworth’s principal long poems are:  The Prelude (1805 published 1850); The Excursion (1814); The White Doe of Rylstone (1815) and Peter Bell The Waggoner (1819).  His fame rests principally on his shorter narrative poems, his meditative lyrics, including his two great odes, To Duty and On the Intimations of Immortality, and on the sonnets, which rank with the finest in the language.  The longer poems have many fine passages exhibiting his powers of graphic description, and illustrating his mystical philosophy of nature.

Thomas Carlyle’s description of Wordsworth is of interest:  “For the rest, he talked well in his way; with veracity, easy brevity, and force, as a wise tradesman would of his tools and workshop, and as no unwise one could.  His voice was good, frank, and sonorous, though practically clear, distinct, and forcible, rather than melodious; the tone of him, businesslike, sedately confident; no discourtesy, yet no anxiety about being courteous.  A fine wholesome rusticity, fresh as his mountain breezes, sat well on the stalwart veteran, and on all he said and did.  You would have said that he was a usually taciturn man, glad to unlock himself to audience sympathetic and intelligent, when such offered itself.  His face bore marks of much, not always peaceful, meditation; the look of it not bland or benevolent so much as close, impregnable, and hard; a man multa tacere loquive paratus, in a world where he had experienced no lack of contradictions as he strode along.  The eyes were not very brilliant, but they had a quiet clearness; there was enough of brow, and well-shaped; rather too much cheek (’horse face’ I have heard satirists say); face of squarish shape, and decidedly longish, as I think the head itself was (its length going horizontal); he was large-boned, lean, but still firm-knit, tall, and strong-looking when he stood, a right good old steel-gray figure, with rustic simplicity and dignity about him, and a vivacious strength looking through him, which might have suited one of those old steel-gray markgrafs whom Henry the Fowler set up towards the ‘marches’ and do battle with the intrusive heathen in a stalwart and judicious manner.”

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

Born, April 7, 1770, at Cockermouth, Cumberland.

Goes to Hawkshead Grammar School, 1778.

Sent by guardians to St. John’s College, Cambridge, October, 1787.

Foreign tour with Jones, 1790.

Graduates as B.A. without honors, January, 1791.

Residence in France, November, 1791, to December, 1792.

Publication of The Evening Walk, and Descriptive Sketches, 1793.

Legacy from Raisley Calvert of 900 pounds, 1794.

Lives at Racedown, Dorsetshire, autumn of 1795 to summer of 1797.

Composes The Borderers, a tragedy, 1795-1796.