“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 waylay.

    “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 and 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 Being 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.”

The years passed in quiet fashion, with friendly coming and goings, with journeys here and there, now to Scotland, now to the Continent.

Children were born, friends died, and once or twice the Wordsworths changed their house until they finally settled at Rydal Mount, and there the poet remained for the rest of his long life.  And all the time, for more than fifty years, Wordsworth steadily wrote, but it is not too much to say that all his best work was done in the twenty years between 1798 and 1818.

Besides The Prelude, of which we have already spoken, Wordsworth’s other long poems are The Excursion and The White Doe of Rylstone.  The White Doe is a story of the days of Queen Elizabeth, of the days when England was still in the midst of religious struggle.  There was a rebellion in Yorkshire, in which the old lord of Rylstone fought vainly if gallantly for the Old Religion, and he and his sons died the death of rebels.  Of all the family only the gentle Emily remained “doomed to be the last leaf on a blasted tree.”  About the country-side she wandered alone accompanied only by a white doe.  In time she, too, died, then for many years the doe was seen alone.  It was often to be seen in the churchyard during service, and after service it would go away with the rest of the congregation.

The Excursion, though a long poem, is only part of what Wordsworth meant to write.  He meant in three books to give his opinions on Man, Nature, and Society, and the whole was to be called The Recluse.  To this great work The Prelude was to be the introduction, hence its name.  But Wordsworth never finished his great design and The Excursion remains a fragment.  Much of The Excursion cannot be called poetry at all.  Yet, as one of Wordsworth’s great admirers has said:  “In deserts of preaching we find delightful oases of poetry."* There is little action in The Excursion, and much of it is merely dull descriptions and conversations.  So I would not advise you to read it for a long time to come.  But to try rather to understand some of Wordworth’s shorter poems, although at times their names may seem less inviting.