By William Wordsworth - The Character

The Character


I marvel how Nature could ever find space

For so many strange contrasts in one human face:

There's thought and no thought, and there's paleness and bloom

And bustle and sluggishness, pleasure and gloom.



There's weakness, and strength both redundant and vain;

Such strength as, if ever affliction and pain

Could pierce through a temper that's soft to disease,

Would be rational peace--a philosopher's ease.



There's indifference, alike when he fails or succeeds,

And attention full ten times as much as there needs;

Pride where there's no envy, there's so much of joy;

And mildness, and spirit both forward and coy.



There's freedom, and sometimes a diffident stare

Of shame scarcely seeming to know that she's there,

There's virtue, the title it surely may claim,

Yet wants heaven knows what to be worthy the name.



This picture from nature may seem to depart,

Yet the Man would at once run away with your heart;

And I for five centuries right gladly would be

Such an odd such a kind happy creature as he.



By William Wordsworth




Nothing Gold Can Stay 
By Robert Frost 

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.


Fireflies in the Garden   
By Robert Frost 

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.

Devotion
By Robert Frost
  The heart can think of no devotion
Greater than being shore to the ocean--
Holding the curve of one position,
Counting an endless repetition.