A Selection from the Sonnets of William Wordsworth

Number of Chapters: 88

Length: 01 hour and 56 minutes

Language: English

This is a very impressive collection of some of the best sonnets from the pen of the incomparable William Wordsworth. The appreciation that Wordsworth had for the beauty of his surroundings is vibrantly exhibited in these selections, as are his feelings on love, friendship, society, conflict, history, the supernatural and indeed the art of poetry itself. And what better vehicle for the elegant articulation of a master poet's thoughts and inspirations than the sonnet, an art form ideally suited to assertion, verbalization and contemplation.

In these sonnets, we witness Wordsworth's poetic expertise at its best in superb descriptions of nature's splendor which he astutely juxtaposes with his reflections on a world that is "too much with us," a world in which, "man for brother man has ceased to feel."

The sanctuary that Wordsworth found and which forms the basis for the inspiration displayed in many of these sonnets was the magnificent Lake District of England, which he depicted as, "At happy distance from Earth's groaning field, / Where ruthless mortals wage incessant wars." Such a sanctuary the poet would have wished for us all, and indeed provided the means for at least our vicarious enjoyment in the form of these enduring and timeless works of art.
- Summary by Bruce Kachuk

Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room (Bruce Kachuk)

Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned (Bruce Kachuk)

Written in very Early Youth (Bruce Kachuk)

I watch, and long have watched, with calm regret (Bruce Kachuk)

How clear, how keen, how marvellously bright (Bruce Kachuk)

While not a leaf seems faded; while the fields (Bruce Kachuk)

There is a pleasure in poetic pains (Bruce Kachuk)

Oxford, May 30, 1820 (Bruce Kachuk)

A Parsonage in Oxfordshire (Bruce Kachuk)

Hail, Twilight, sovereign of one peaceful hour! (Bruce Kachuk)

Mark the concentred hazels that enclose (Bruce Kachuk)

Composed at Rydal on May Morning, 1838 (Bruce Kachuk)

Though the bold wings of Poesy affect (Bruce Kachuk)

Pelion and Ossa flourish side by side (Bruce Kachuk)

To Sleep (Bruce Kachuk)

Fond words have oft been spoken to thee, Sleep! (Bruce Kachuk)

The River Eden, Cumberland (Bruce Kachuk)

Surprised by joy - impatient as the Wind (Bruce Kachuk)

Her only pilot the soft breeze, the boat (Bruce Kachuk)

With Ships the sea was sprinkled far and nigh (Bruce Kachuk)

Where lies the Land to which yon Ship must go? (Bruce Kachuk)

Sole listener, Duddon! to the Breeze that played (Bruce Kachuk)

What aspect bore the Man who roved or fled (Bruce Kachuk)

Hail to the fields - with dwellings sprinkled o'er (Bruce Kachuk)

The Stepping-Stones (Bruce Kachuk)

Whence that low voice? - A whisper from the heart (Bruce Kachuk)

I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide (Bruce Kachuk)

Brook! whose society the poet seeks (Bruce Kachuk)

Methinks that to some vacant hermitage (Bruce Kachuk)

There is a little unpretending Rill (Bruce Kachuk)

Written upon a Blank Leaf in "The Complete Angler" (Bruce Kachuk)

Oh Friend! I know not which way I must look (Bruce Kachuk)

The world is too much with us; late and soon (Bruce Kachuk)

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour (Bruce Kachuk)

Great men have been among us; hands that penned (Bruce Kachuk)

It is not to be thought of that the Flood (Bruce Kachuk)

When I have borne in memory what has tamed (Bruce Kachuk)

Near Dover (Bruce Kachuk)

Vanguard of Liberty, ye men of Kent (Bruce Kachuk)

Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland (Bruce Kachuk)

An Invasion Being Expected, October 1803 (Bruce Kachuk)

Composed in the Valley near Dover, on the Day of Landing (Bruce Kachuk)

Not Love, not War, nor the tumultuous swell (Bruce Kachuk)

To Toussaint L'Ouverture (Bruce Kachuk)

When Philoctetes in the Lemnian Isle (Bruce Kachuk)

When haughty expectations prostrate lie (Bruce Kachuk)

O'er the wide earth, on mountain and on plain (Bruce Kachuk)

On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic (Bruce Kachuk)

By Grasmere Lake (Bruce Kachuk)

Composed by the Sea-Side, Near Calais (Bruce Kachuk)

As leaves are to the tree whereon they grow (Bruce Kachuk)

Adieu, Rydalian Laurels! that have grown (Bruce Kachuk)

The Trosachs (Bruce Kachuk)

Admonition (Bruce Kachuk)

The forest huge of ancient Caledon (Bruce Kachuk)

Aix-la-Chapelle (Bruce Kachuk)

Between Namur and Liège (Bruce Kachuk)

Composed on Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1802 (Bruce Kachuk)

Roman Antiquities (Bruce Kachuk)

The Monument commonly called Long Meg and Her Daughters, near the River Eden (Bruce Kachuk)

There! said a Stripling, pointing with meet pride (Bruce Kachuk)

Mary Queen of Scots (Bruce Kachuk)

In sight of the Town of Cockermouth (Bruce Kachuk)

A Place of Burial in the South of Scotland (Bruce Kachuk)

Most sweet it is with unuplifted eyes (Bruce Kachuk)

In King's College Chapel, Cambridge (Bruce Kachuk)

They dreamt not of a perishable home (Bruce Kachuk)

Rural Ceremony (Bruce Kachuk)

Places of Worship (Bruce Kachuk)

Who but is pleased to watch the moon on high (Bruce Kachuk)

The Shepherd, looking eastward, softly said (Bruce Kachuk)

With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the sky (Bruce Kachuk)

The stars are mansions built by Nature's hand (Bruce Kachuk)

To a Snow-drop (Bruce Kachuk)

Hark! 'tis the Thrush, undaunted, undeprest (Bruce Kachuk)

I dropped my pen; and listened to the Wind (Bruce Kachuk)

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free (Bruce Kachuk)

To the Cuckoo (Bruce Kachuk)

Near Anio's stream, I spied a gentle Dove (Bruce Kachuk)

Composed on a May Morning (Bruce Kachuk)

Personal Talk (Bruce Kachuk)

Yet life, you say, "is life; we have seen and see" (Bruce Kachuk)

Wings have we - and as far as we can go (Bruce Kachuk)

Nor can I not believe but that hereby (Bruce Kachuk)

How sweet it is, when mother Fancy rocks (Bruce Kachuk)

Why art thou silent? Is thy love a plant (Bruce Kachuk)

To the Planet Venus, an Evening Star (Bruce Kachuk)

Valedictory Sonnet (Bruce Kachuk)

The audiobook A Selection from the Sonnets of William Wordsworth falls under the genres of Single Author, Sonnets. It is written by William Wordsworth.

ListenFreeAudio.Com

Your Free Audiobook Library

A Selection from the Sonnets of William Wordsworth