My heart leaps up when I behold / A Rainbow in the sky:
Wordsworth wrote the nine-line poem in 1802. It contains the line “The Child is Father of the Man”, which he later used as the motto for his Ode: Intimations of Immortality.
I wandered lonely as a Cloud / That floats on high o’er Vales and Hills, / When all at once I saw a crowd / A host of dancing Daffodills;
Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity:
The world is too much with us; late and soon, / Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: / Its loveliness increases; it will never / Pass into nothingness;
All the world’s a stage, / And all the men and women merely players;
Because I could not stop for Death – / He kindly stopped for me –