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Ecclesiastical Sonnets - Part III. - XXXIII - Regrets

By William Wordsworth

Topics: classic

Would that our scrupulous Sires had dared to leave Less scanty measure of those graceful rites And usages, whose due return invites A stir of mind too natural to deceive; Giving to Memory help when she would weave A crown for Hope! I dread the boasted lights That all too often are but fiery blights, Killing the bud o'er which in vain we grieve. Go, seek, when Christmas snows discomfort bring, The counter Spirit found in some gay church Green with fresh holly, every pew a perch In which the linnet or the thrush might sing, Merry and loud and safe from prying search, Strains offered only to the genial Spring.

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"Would that our scrupulous Sires had dared to leave..."

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Author:William Wordsworth

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"Would that our scrupulous Sires had dared to leave..." by William Wordsworth

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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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