William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
A Poet! He Hath Put his Heart to School
1 A poet!--He hath put his heart to school,
2Nor dares to move unpropped upon the staff
3Which art hath lodged within his hand--must laugh
4By precept only, and shed tears by rule.
5Thy Art be Nature; the live current quaff,
6And let the groveller sip his stagnant pool,
7In fear that else, when Critics grave and cool
8Have killed him, Scorn should write his epitaph.
9How does the Meadow-flower its bloom unfold?
10Because the lovely little flower is free
11Down to its root, and, in that freedom, bold;
12And so the grandeur of the Forest-tree
13Comes not by casting in a formal mould,
14But from its own divine vitality.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: William Wordsworth, Poems, Chiefly of Early and Late Years, including The Borderers, a Tragedy (1842).
First publication date:
1842
RPO poem editor: J. D. Robins
RP edition: 2RP 2.86.
Recent editing: 2:2002/3/20
Form: sonnet
Rhyme: abbaaccadedede
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