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Cover of “Lyrical Ballads”

Lyrical Ballads

William Wordsworth & Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1770–1850)

The book that launched English Romanticism: ballads of ordinary people and nature, with Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey”.

First published
1798
Genre
Poetry
Length
218 pages · 56,769 words
Reading time
≈ 4 h 10 min
Language
English
License
Public domain

How it begins

Volume I

Expostulation and Reply

“Why, William, on that old gray stone,“Thus for the length of half a day,“Why, William, sit you thus alone,“And dream your time away?

“Where are your books?⁠—that light bequeath’d“To beings else forlorn and blind!“Up! up! and drink the spirit breath’d“From dead men to their kind.

“You look round on your mother earth,“As if she for no purpose bore you;“As if you were her first-born birth,“And none had lived before you!”

One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake,When life was sweet, I knew not why,To me my good friend Matthew spake,And thus I made reply:

“The eye it cannot choose but see;“We cannot bid the ear be still;“Our bodies feel, where’er they be,“Against, or with our will.

“Nor less I deem that there are powers“Which of themselves our minds impress;“That we can feed this mind of ours“In a wise passiveness.

“Think you, mid all this mighty sum“Of things for ever speaking,

Keep reading in the Library

This edition

Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth & Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1770–1850) was first published in 1798. It is in the public domain worldwide: its author died more than a hundred years ago.

Text based on the Standard Ebooks edition (dedicated to the public domain under CC0), https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/william-wordsworth/samuel-taylor-coleridge/lyrical-ballads. Their cover, imprint, colophon and licence pages were removed; the text and its structure were kept and restyled for this edition.

Original cover and design by the Arcadópolis Library.

Text source: Standard Ebooks

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