Lyrical Ballads

William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

• Publisher: Books on Demand
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9783748128724
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Lyrical Ballads
• Table of contents
• THE RIME OF THE ANCYENT MARINERE,
• THE FOSTER-MOTHER'S TALE, A DRAMATIC FRAGMENT.
• 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;
• THE FEMALE VAGRANT.
• GOODY BLAKE, AND HARRY GILL, A TRUE STORY.
• 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, WITH AN INCIDENT IN WHICH HE WAS CONCERNED.
• ANECDOTE FOR FATHERS SHEWING HOW THE ART OF LYING MAY BE TAUGHT.
• 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; ANIMAL TRANQUILLITY AND DECAY, A SKETCH.
• THE COMPLAINT OF A FORSAKEN INDIAN WOMAN
• THE CONVICT.
• LINES WRITTEN A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY, ON REVISITING THE BANKS OF THE WYE DURING A TOUR, July 13, 1798.