Explore "Wordsworth (in Praise of Poets)" by Henry Van Dyke on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Wordsworth, thy music like a river rolls / Among the mountains, and thy song is fed / By living springs far up the watershed; / No whirling flood nor parching drought controls / The crystal current; even on the shoals / It murmurs clear and sweet; and when its bed / Darkens below mysterious cliffs of dread, / Thy voice of peace grows deeper in our souls.
But thou in youth hast known the breaking stress / Of passion, and hast trod despair's dry ground / Beneath black thoughts that wither and de- / stroy. / Ah, wanderer, led by human tenderness / Home to the heart of Nature, thou hast found / The hidden Fountain of Recovered Joy.