Lyrical Ballads

Lyrical Ballads

By William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Table of Contents

1. Titlepage
2. Imprint
3. Preface
4. Epigraph
5. Lyrical Ballads
   1. Volume I
      1. Expostulation and Reply
      2. The Tables Turned
      3. Animal Tranquillity and Decay
      4. Goody Blake and Harry Gill
      5. The Last of the Flock
      6. Lines Left Upon a Seat in a Yew-Tree, Which Stands Near the Lake of Estwaithe, on a Desolate Part of the Shore, Yet Commanding a Beautiful Prospect
      7. The Foster-Mother’s Tale
      8. The Thorn
         1. I
         2. II
         3. III
         4. IV
         5. V
         6. VI
         7. VII
         8. VIII
         9. IX
         10. X
         11. XI
         12. XII
         13. XIII
         14. XIV
         15. XV
         16. XVI
         17. XVII
         18. XVIII
         19. XIX
         20. XX
         21. XXI
         22. XXII
         23. XXIII
      9. We Are Seven
      10. Anecdote for Fathers
      11. Lines Written at a Small Distance from My House, and Sent by My Little Boy to the Person to Whom They Are Addressed
      12. The Female Vagrant
      13. Lines Written in Early Spring
      14. Simon Lee, the Old Huntsman
      15. The Nightingale
      16. The Idiot Boy
      17. Love
      18. The Mad Mother
      19. The Ancient Mariner
          1. I
          2. II
          3. III
          4. IV
          5. V
          6. VI
          7. VII
      20. Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour
   2. Volume II
      1. Hart-Leap Well
         1. Part Second
      2. There Was a Boy
      3. The Brothers
      4. Ellen Irwin
      5. Strange Fits of Passion I Have Known
      6. She Dwelt Among th’ Untrodden Ways
      7. The Waterfall and the Eglantine
      8. The Oak and the Broom
      9. The Complaint of a Forsaken Indian Woman
      10. Lucy Gray
      11. ’Tis Said, That Some Have Died for Love
      12. The Idle Shepherd-Boys
          1. I
          2. II
          3. III
          4. IV
          5. V
          6. VI
          7. VII
          8. VIII
          9. IX
      13. Poor Susan
      14. Inscription
      15. Lines Written with a Pencil Upon a Stone in the Wall of the House (An Out-House) on the Island at Grasmere
      16. To a Sexton
      17. Andrew Jones
      18. Ruth
      19. Lines Written with a Slate-Pencil, Upon a Stone, the Largest of a Heap Lying Near a Deserted Quarry, Upon One of the Islands at Rydale
      20. Lines Written on a Tablet in a School
      21. The Two April Mornings
      22. The Fountain
      23. Nutting
      24. Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower
      25. The Pet-Lamb
      26. Written in Germany, on One of the Coldest Days of the Century
      27. The Childless Father
      28. The Old Cumberland Beggar
      29. Rural Architecture
      30. A Poet’s Epitaph
      31. A Fragment
      32. Poems on the Naming of Places
          1. Advertisement
          2. I
          3. II: To Joanna
          4. III
          5. IV
          6. V: To M. H.
      33. Lines Written When Sailing in a Boat at Evening
      34. Remembrance of Collins
      35. The Two Thieves
      36. A Whirl-Blast from Behind the Hill
      37. Song for the Wandering Jew
      38. Michael
6. Appendix
7. Endnotes
8. Colophon
9. Uncopyright

Imprint

This ebook is the product of many hours of hard work by volunteers for Standard Ebooks, and builds on the hard work of other literature lovers made possible by the public domain.

This particular ebook is based on a transcription produced for Romantic Circles and on digital scans available at the Internet Archive (vols. I and II).

The writing and artwork within are believed to be in the U.S. public domain, and Standard Ebooks releases this ebook edition under the terms in the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. For full license information, see the Uncopyright at the end of this ebook.

Standard Ebooks is a volunteer-driven project that produces ebook editions of public domain literature using modern typography, technology, and editorial standards, and distributes them free of cost. You can download this and other ebooks carefully produced for true book lovers at standardebooks.org.

Preface

The first volume of these Poems has already been submitted to general perusal. It was published, as an experiment, which, I hoped, might be of some use to ascertain, how far, by fitting to metrical arrangement a selection of the real language of men in a state of vivid sensation, that sort of pleasure and that quantity of pleasure may be imparted, which a Poet may rationally endeavour to impart.

I had formed no very inaccurate estimate of the probable effect of those Poems: I flattered myself that they who should be pleased with them would read them with more than common pleasure: and, on the other hand, I was well aware, that by those who should dislike them they would be read with more than common dislike. The result has differed from my expectation in this only, that I have pleased a greater number, than I ventured to hope I should please.

For the sake of variety, and from a consciousness of my own weakness, I was induced to request the assistance of a Friend, who furnished me with the Poems of the “Ancient Mariner,” the “Foster-Mother’s Tale,” the “Nightingale,” and the Poem entitled “Love.” I should not, however, have requested this assistance, had I not believed that the Poems of my Friend would in a great measure have the same tendency as my own, and that, though there would be found a difference, there would be found no discordance in the colours of our style; as our opinions on the subject of poetry do almost entirely coincide.

Several of my Friends are anxious for the success of these Poems from a belief, that, if the views with which they were composed were indeed realized, a class of Poetry would be produced, well adapted to interest mankind permanently, and not unimportant in the multiplicity, and in the quality of its moral relations: and on this account they have advised me to prefix a systematic defence of the theory upon which the poems were written. But I was unwilling to undertake the task, because I knew that on this occasion the Reader would look coldly upon my arguments, since I might be suspected of having been principally influenced by the selfish and foolish hope of reasoning him into an approbation of these particular Poems: and I was still more