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Memorials Of A Tour On The Continent, 1820 - VI. - Aix-La-Chapelle

By William Wordsworth

Topics: classic

Was it to disenchant, and to undo, That we approached the Seat of Charlemaine? To sweep from many an old romantic strain That faith which no devotion may renew! Why does this puny Church present to view Her feeble columns? and that scanty chair! This sword that one of our weak times might wear! Objects of false pretense, or meanly true! If from a traveler's fortune I might claim A palpable memorial of that day, Then would I seek the Pyrenean Breach That Roland clove with huge two-handed sway, And to the enormous labour left his name, Where unremitting frosts the rocky crescent bleach.

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"Was it to disenchant, and to undo,..."

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Author:William Wordsworth

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"Was it to disenchant, and to undo,..." 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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