My heart leaps up when I beholdA rainbow in the sky:So was it now I am a man,So be it when I shall grow oldOr let me die!The Child is father of the Man:And I could wish my days to be Bound to each by natural piety.

--William Wordsworth

ROMANTICISM: The Lake Poets

Wordsworth and Coleridge

Wordsworth and Coleridge were at the center of a

circle of poets and writers referred to as the Lake Poets because of their

attachment to England’s Lake District and its

natural beauty.

The Lake DistrictOne of England's Few Mountainous Regions

William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy were born in

Cockermouth, Cumbria, and returned there as adults for

peace and inspiration.

Coleridge visited

Wordsworth often, and at times,

lived nearby with his

wife.

The Friendship• Both men loved poetry, which

they discussed enthusiastically.

• Both were fierce partisans of the French Revolution in its early days.

• Both loved nature, and shared the joy of walking in the hills.

Lyrical Ballads (1798) was a joint collection of

their works.

Coleridge’s poems

celebrate the strange and the exotic.

Wordsworth explores the

language and

experience of common people in natural

settings.

Both were committed to reaching truths about

the human soul deeper than those

conventional poetry could express.

Later Years• Suffering from neuralgic and

rheumatic pains, Coleridge had become addicted to opium, freely prescribed by physicians.

• The friendship between the two men broke down by 1810, owing in part to Coleridge’s reliance on painkillers.

Wordsworth’s Final Home in the Lake District

Coleridge’s Epitaph'Stop, Christian Passer-by! - Stop, child of God,

And read with gentle breast. Beneath this sodA poet lies, or that which once seem'd he. -

O, lift one thought in prayer for S.T.C.;That he who many a year with toil of breath

Found death in life, may here find life in death!Mercy for praise - to be forgiven for fame

He ask'd for praise - to be forgiven for fameHe ask'd, and hoped, through Christ.

Do thou the same!'

Tintern Abbey, Wales

“A host of golden daffodils . . .”