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    Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems (1798)
    Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems (1798)
    Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems (1798)
    Ebook124 pages1 hour

    Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems (1798)

    By William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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    This is the first edition of "Lyrical Ballads," published in 1798, written by the English poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor. The collection is generally considered to have marked the beginning of the English romantic movement, and despite negative critical reception at first, subsequent editions were produced and the book has remained a staple in poetry and British literature studies for over two centuries. Wordsworth and Taylor sought to bring poetry to the average person by writing in vernacular language on subjects that are universally relevant. The majority of the poems in this edition were written by Wordsworth, including "Lines Written in Early Spring," "Lines written near Richmond, upon the Thames, at Evening," and "The Convict," which was omitted from subsequent editions. Coleridge's contributions, though less popular at the time because of macabre or supernatural nature, include his now famous "The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere," and "Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey."
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDigireads.com Publishing
    Release dateJan 1, 2011
    ISBN9781420924817
    Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems (1798)

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    • 3/5
      Romantics just ain't really my dig.
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      The first edition of Wordsworth’s and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads was published on this day in 1798. A historic moment in poetry, it is the high-water mark of perhaps the most famous collaboration and friendship in literary history. The two remained close for another decade, but the fault lines were by then well established. Dorothy Wordsworth took up much of her brother’s emotional life, and after Wordsworth married (on this day in 1802) there was even less room for Coleridge. This became especially clear when Coleridge attempted to live in the same house with the other three, while maintaining his old, opium-fueled pattern of wild plans and dark moods. The poetic record shows the strain: in 1807, while Coleridge was publicly proclaiming his love and need for “O Friend! My comforter and guide!

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    Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems (1798) - William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

    LYRICAL BALLADS, WITH A FEW OTHER POEMS.

    1798

    BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH AND SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

    A Digireads.com Book

    Digireads.com Publishing

    Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-3852-4

    Ebook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-2481-7

    This edition copyright © 2012

    Please visit www.digireads.com

    ADVERTISEMENT.

    It is the honourable characteristic of Poetry that its materials are to be found in every subject which can interest the human mind. The evidence of this fact is to be sought, not in the writings of Critics, but in those of Poets themselves.

    The majority of the following poems are to be considered as experiments. They were written chiefly with a view to ascertain how far the language of conversation in the middle and lower classes of society is adapted to the purposes of poetic pleasure. Readers accustomed to the gaudiness and inane phraseology of many modern writers, if they persist in reading this book to its conclusion, will perhaps frequently have to struggle with feelings of strangeness and aukwardness: they will look round for poetry, and will be induced to enquire by what species of courtesy these attempts can be permitted to assume that title. It is desirable that such readers, for their own sakes, should not suffer the solitary word Poetry, a word of very disputed meaning, to stand in the way of their gratification; but that, while they are perusing this book, they should ask themselves if it contains a natural delineation of human passions, human characters, and human incidents; and if the answer be favourable to the author's wishes, that they should consent to be pleased in spite of that most dreadful enemy to our pleasures, our own pre-established codes of decision.

    Readers of superior judgment may disapprove of the style in which many of these pieces are executed it must be expected that many lines and phrases will not exactly suit their taste. It will perhaps appear to them, that wishing to avoid the prevalent fault of the day, the author has sometimes descended too low, and that many of his expressions are too familiar, and not of sufficient dignity. It is apprehended, that the more conversant the reader is with our elder writers, and with those in modern times who have been the most successful in painting manners and passions, the fewer complaints of this kind will he have to make.

    An accurate taste in poetry, and in all the other arts, Sir Joshua Reynolds has observed, is an acquired talent, which can only be produced by severe thought, and a long continued intercourse with the best models of composition. This is mentioned not with so ridiculous a purpose as to prevent the most inexperienced reader from judging for himself; but merely to temper the rashness of decision, and to suggest that if poetry be a subject on which much time has not been bestowed, the judgment may be erroneous, and that in many cases it necessarily will be so.

    The tale of Goody Blake and Harry Gill is founded on a well-authenticated fact which happened in Warwickshire. Of the other poems in the collection, it may be proper to say that they are either absolute inventions of the author, or facts which took place within his personal observation or that of his friends. The poem of the Thorn, as the reader will soon discover, is not supposed to be spoken in the author's own person: the character of the loquacious narrator will sufficiently shew itself in the course of the story. The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere was professedly written in imitation of the style, as well as of the spirit of the elder poets; but with a few exceptions, the Author believes that the language adopted in it has been equally intelligible for these three last centuries. The lines entitled Expostulation and Reply, and those which follow, arose out of conversation with a friend who was somewhat unreasonably attached to modern books of moral philosophy.

    CONTENTS

    ADVERTISEMENT.

    THE RIME OF THE ANCYENT MARINERE,

    THE FOSTER-MOTHER'S TALE

    LINES LEFT UPON A SEAT IN A YEW-TREE WHICH STANDS NEAR THE LAKE OF ESTHWAITE, ON A DESOLATE PART OF THE SHORE, YET COMMANDING A BEAUTIFUL PROSPECT.

    THE NIGHTINGALE; A CONVERSATIONAL POEM,

    THE FEMALE VAGRANT.

    GOODY BLAKE, AND HARRY GILL,

    LINES WRITTEN AT A SMALL DISTANCE FROM MY HOUSE, AND SENT BY MY LITTLE BOY TO THE PERSON TO WHOM THEY ARE ADDRESSED.

    SIMON LEE, THE OLD HUNTSMAN,

    ANECDOTE FOR FATHERS,

    WE ARE SEVEN.

    LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING.

    THE THORN.

    THE LAST OF THE FLOCK.

    THE DUNGEON.

    THE MAD MOTHER.

    THE IDIOT BOY.

    LINES WRITTEN NEAR RICHMOND, UPON THE THAMES, AT EVENING.

    EXPOSTULATION AND REPLY.

    THE TABLES TURNED; AN EVENING SCENE, ON THE SAME SUBJECT.

    OLD MAN TRAVELLING;

    THE COMPLAINT OF A FORSAKEN INDIAN WOMAN.

    THE CONVICT.

    LINES WRITTEN A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY,

    THE RIME OF THE ANCYENT MARINERE,

    IN SEVEN PARTS.

    How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by Storms to the cold Country towards the South Pole; and how from thence she made her course to the tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean; and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own Country.

    I.

    It is an ancyent Marinere,

    And he stoppeth one of three:

    "By thy long grey beard and thy glittering eye

    "Now wherefore stoppest me?

    "The Bridegroom's doors are open'd wide

    "And I am next of kin;

    "The Guests are met, the Feast is set,—

    "May'st hear the merry din.—

    But still he holds the wedding-guest—

    There was a Ship, quoth he—

    "Nay, if thou'st got a laughsome tale,

    Marinere! come with me.

    He holds him with his skinny hand,

    Quoth he, there was a Ship—

    "Now get thee hence, thou grey-beard Loon!

    Or my Staff shall make thee skip.

    He holds him with his glittering eye—

    The wedding guest stood still

    And listens like a three year's child;

    The Marinere hath his will.

    The wedding-guest sate on a stone,

    He cannot chuse but hear:

    And thus spake on that ancyent man,

    The bright-eyed Marinere.

    The Ship was cheer'd, the Harbour clear'd—

    Merrily did we drop

    Below the Kirk, below the Hill,

    Below the Light-house top.

    The Sun came up upon the left,

    Out of the Sea came he:

    And he shone bright, and on the right

    Went down into the Sea.

    Higher and higher every day,

    Till over the mast at noon—

    The wedding-guest here beat his breast,

    For he

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