Classic Love Poems

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was an English poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, launched the Romantic Age in English literature with the joint publication of Lyrical Ballads in 1798. Wordsworth’s love for nature and sympathy for the common man were major themes in his poetry. In 1843, he was named Poet Laureate. His autobiographical epic, The Prelude, was published three months after his death in 1850. Though it was not well-received at the time, it has since been recognized as a masterpiece.

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“Village Love”
by Jules Bastien-Lepage, 1882

The Women in His Life

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All of his life, Wordsworth was close to to his sister Dorothy, an author, poet, and diarist. He relied on her detailed accounts of nature scenes when writing his poems and borrowed freely from her journals. While visiting France in 1791, he fell in love with a French woman, Annette Vallon who, in 1792, gave birth to their daughter, Caroline. Wordsworth returned to England alone; and, in 1799, moved into Dove Cottage in Grasmere with Dorothy, who served as his secretary. In 1802, Wordsworth married a childhood friend, Mary Hutchinson. They eventually had five children. Dorothy Wordsworth, who never married, continued to live with them.

William Wordsworth
with his wife, Mary

Online Books

Resource Sites

• Complete Poetical Works
• Old Poetry
• Poem Hunter
• Poetry Foundation
• Poets
• Wikipedia

She Was a Phantom of Delight

She was a phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely apparition, sent
To be a moment’s ornament;
Her eyes as stars of twilight fair;
Like twilight’s, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful dawn;
A dancing shape, an image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and way-lay.

I saw her upon nearer view,
A spirit, yet a Woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin-liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature’s daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A Bbeing breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect Woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light.

Louisa: After Accompanying Her
on a Mountain Excursion

I met Louisa in the shade,
And, having seen that lovely maid,
Why should I fear to say
That, nymph-like, she is fleet and strong,
And down the rocks can leap along
Like rivulets in May?

She loves her fire, her cottage-home;
Yet o’er the moorland will she roam
In weather rough and bleak;
And, when against the wind she strains,
Oh! might I kiss the mountain rains
That sparkle on her cheek.

Take all that’s mine “beneath the moon,”
If I with her but half a noon
May sit beneath the walls
Of some old cave, or mossy nook,
When up she winds along the brook
To hunt the waterfalls.

It is a Beauteous Evening
Written for his daughter, Caroline

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
The holy time is quiet as a nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquility;
The gentleness of heaven broods o’er the sea:
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder—everlastingly.
Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Thou liest in Abraham’s bosom all the year,
And worship’st at the Temple’s inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.