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Composed In Roslin Chapel During A Storm

By William Wordsworth

Topics: classic

The wind is now thy organist; a clank (We know not whence) ministers for a bell To mark some change of service. As the swell Of music reached its height, and even when sank The notes, in prelude, Roslin! to a blank Of silence, how it thrilled thy sumptuous roof, Pillars, and arches, not in vain time-proof, Though Christian rites be wanting! From what bank Came those live herbs? by what hand were they sown Where dew falls not, where rain-drops seem unknown? Yet in the Temple they a friendly niche Share with their sculptured fellows, that, green-grown, Copy their beauty more and more, and preach, Though mute, of all things blending into one.

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"The wind is now thy organist; a clank..."

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Author:William Wordsworth

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"The wind is now thy organist; a clank..." by William Wordsworth

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"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

William Wordsworth

About William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) was an English Romantic poet who launched the movement with Samuel Taylor Coleridge in "Lyrical Ballads" (1798). His poems—including "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" and "Tintern Abbey"—championed nature, memory, and the language of common speech.

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