ROMANTIC POETS

WILLIAM BLAKE

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

LORD BYRON

PERCY SHELLEY

JOHN KEATS

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 https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43673/london-56d222777e969

London
BY WILLIAM B L AKE

I wander thro' each charter'd street,

Near where the charter'd Thames does flow.
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,

In every Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear

How the Chimney-sweepers cry

Every blackning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls

But most thro' midnight streets I hear

How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse

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 https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/45521
The Daffodils
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

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Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Study Guide

1- Read William Wordsworth´s biography. (Stephen). What were the most remarkable
events in his life?
2- What is the connection between Wordsworth´s “simplicity of style” and the main
tenet of the Romantic Movement? (Stephen).
3- According to Stephen, Wordsworth is a Pantheist. What does he mean?
4- Stephen claims that Wordsworth´s real genius,

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 “lies in showing what happens when the innate power of Nature meets the power of
perception of a human being”.
Do you think this claim is valid for “the Daffodils”? Account for your answer.
5- What is the impact that the daffodils have on the poet’s soul?
6- Explain in your own words the meaning of the following verses:
a- “Tossing their heads in sprightly dance”
b- “they out-did the sparkling waves in glee”
c- “I gazed-and gazed- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought”
d- “they flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,”
7- Analyze the use of rhyme in the poem.
8- Identify instances of the use of:
a- Unusual syntax.
b- Similes and/or metaphors.
c- Personification.

The Daffodils
Video Watching Session

a- You are going to watch the videos of three people reading the poem. After watching,
answer these questions:
1- What differences in pronunciation can you identify?
2- Do you think the three speakers understand the poem in the same way? Why?
Why not?
3- What meaning may the poem have for each speaker?
4- Which reading do you like best? Why? Which reading do you like the least?
Why?
Video 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KrxAxzjhEE&list=PLWNfGmlmzWD0HR9z-
GZHaeqMszMpsasyv&index=10&t=0s

Video 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slGKNc4JSto&list=PLWNfGmlmzWD0HR9z-
GZHaeqMszMpsasyv&index=7

Video 3

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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQnyV2YWsto&list=PLWNfGmlmzWD0HR9z-
GZHaeqMszMpsasyv&index=8

b- Poetry and Pop Culture. You are going to watch part of a cartoon from the Rocky
and Bullwinkle Show. Pay attention. How is the end different from the original poem?
What does Bullwinkle say? What was the purpose of the alteration?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv1L-8f2erg&list=PLWNfGmlmzWD0HR9z-
GZHaeqMszMpsasyv&index=10

c- Readers’ response to poetry. Finally, you are going to watch two videos with readers’
interpretations of the poem. Which of the two do you think is more effective in terms
of its originality and appeal?

Video 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NipvZeumBqU&list=PLWNfGmlmzWD0HR9z-
GZHaeqMszMpsasyv&index=6

Video 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yooUWSKPLyk&list=PLWNfGmlmzWD0HR9z-
GZHaeqMszMpsasyv&index=5

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/resources/learning/core-poems/detail/46565#poem

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 Ozymandias

BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

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https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/43845#poem

So We'll Go No More a Roving

BY LORD BYRON (GEORGE GORDON)

So, we'll go no more a roving

So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,

And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,

And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/
On_receiving_an_Account_that_his_Only_Sister's_Death_was_Inevitable

On Receiving an Account that his Only Sister's Death was Inevitable

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The tear which mourn'd a brother's fate scarce dry-

Pain after pain, and woe succeeding woe-

Is my heart destin'd for another blow?

O my sweet sister! and must thou too die?

Ah! how has Disappointment pour'd the tear

O'er infant Hope destroy'd by early frost!

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 How are ye gone, whom most by soul held dear!

Scarce had I lov'd you ere I mourn'd you lost;

Say, is this hollow eye, this heartless pain,

Fated to rove thro' Life's wide cheerless plain-

Nor father, brother, sister meets its ken-

My woes, my joys unshared! Ah! long ere then

On me thy icy dart, stern Death, be prov'd;-

Better to die, than live and not be lov'd.

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/ode-nightingale

OdetoaNightingale

John Keats, 1795 - 1821

1.

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:

‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,

But being too happy in thine happiness,—

That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,

In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,

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 Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

2.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been

Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,

Tasting of Flora and the country green,

Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth!

O for a beaker full of the warm South,

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

And purple-stained mouth;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,

And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

3.

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known,

The weariness, the fever, and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

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Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs,

Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

4.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,

But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

Already with thee! tender is the night,

And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,

Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays;

But here there is no light,

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

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5.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,

But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet

Wherewith the seasonable month endows

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;

White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;

Fast fading violets cover’d up in leaves;

And mid-May’s eldest child,

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

6.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,

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Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

To take into the air my quiet breath;

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—

To thy high requiem become a sod.

7.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

No hungry generations tread thee down;

The voice I hear this passing night was heard

In ancient days by emperor and clown:

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that oft-times hath

Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam

Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

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8.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

To toil me back from thee to my sole self!

Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades

Past the near meadows, over the still stream,

Up the hill-side; and now ‘tis buried deep

In the next valley-glades:

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?

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Ode to a Nightingale: Glossary

Drowsy: adjective. Making one sleepy.

Numb: unable to feel anything. Numbness: noun.
Hemlock: a poisonous plant with white flowers and finely divided leaves.
Drain: something, as a pipe or conduit, by which liquid drains.
Lethe:

River Lethe - (Greek mythology) a river in Hades; the souls of the dead had to drink from it, which
made them forget all they had done and suffered when they were alive.
Wards: suffix. In the direction of.

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Lot: the whole number or amount of people or things.

Dryad
. Greek Mythology
A divinity presiding over forests and trees; a wood nymph.

dryad - a deity or nymph of the woods

nymph - (classical mythology) a minor nature goddess usually depicted as a beautiful maiden; "the
ancient Greeks believed that nymphs inhabited forests and bodies of water"

plot: a small piece of land that is used or intended for a special purpose.
Beechen: consisting of or made of wood of the beech tree.
Beech: a tall forest tree with smooth grey bark, shiny leaves and small nuts. (HAYA).

II

Draught: an amount of liquid that you swallow at one time.

Vintage:
n.
1. The yield of wine or grapes from a vineyard or district during one season.
2. Wine, usually of high quality, identified as to year and vineyard or district of origin. ( This
is the meaning intended in the poem)
3. The year or place in which a wine is bottled.
4.
a. The harvesting of a grape crop.
b. The initial stages of winemaking.
5. Informal
a. A group or collection of people or things sharing certain characteristics.
b. A year or period of origin: a car of 1942 vintage.
c. Length of existence; age.
adj.
1. Of or relating to a vintage.
2. Characterized by excellence, maturity, and enduring appeal; classic.
3. Old or outmoded.
4.

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a. Of the best: played songs that were vintage Cole Porter.
b. Of the most distinctive: "Fatalism has coexisted with vintage American overconfidence" (Thomas
Oliphant).

O: (especially literary) = oh, exclamation.

Delve: synonym of dig.

Flora

Flora \Flo"ra\, n. [L., the goddess of flowers, from flos, floris, flower. See Flower.]

1. (Rom. Myth.) The goddess of flowers and spring.

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Provencal: Provençal, meaning "of Provence", a region of France
Mirth: (mainly literary) happy laughter.

Beaker:
n.

1. A large drinking cup with a wide mouth.

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 2. The quantity that a beaker holds.

Hippocrene

n. Greek Mythology
A fountain on Mount Helicon, Greece, sacred to the Muses and regarded as a source of poetic
inspiration.
[Latin: hippos, horse (from the myth that Pegasus's hoof created it) + krēnē, fountain.]

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beaded: covered in small drops of a liquid.
Brim: the top edge of a cup or bowl.
Dim: adjective. Not bright.

III

Fade: to become paler.

Thou: Old English, you (in subject position)
Hast: Old English, have.
Weariness: tiredness.
Fret: verb. To be worried or unhappy and not able to relax.
Groan: to make a long deep sound, because you are annoyed, upset or in pain.
Palsy: paralysis, especially when arms and legs shake without control.
Spectre: ghost (literary)
Leaden: adjective. (literary) dull, heavy or slow A leaden heart (because you are sad).
Despair: the feeling of having lost all hope.
Lustrous: adjective. Shining in a soft, gentle way.
Pine: verb. To become very sad because somebody has died or gone away.

IV

Chariot: an open vehicle with two wheels, pulled by horses, used in ancient times in battle and for
racing.

Bacchus:

The Greek and Roman god of wine and revelry. He is also known by the Greek name Dionysus.
Note: In painting, Bacchus is often depicted eating a bunch of grapes and surrounded by satyrs.

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Note: A “bacchanalian” party or feast is marked by unrestrained drunkenness. The name recalls a
Roman festival called Bacchanalia.

Bacchus’s chariot

Poesy: –noun, plural -sies.

1. the work or the art of poetic composition.
2. Archaic.
a. poetry in general.
b. verse or poetry in metrical form.

Retard: verb. Slow down, delay.

Tender: kind, gentle.
Haply: related to happily.
Cluster: a group of things of the same type.
Starry: adjective. Full of stars.
Fay: Another word for a fairy (faerie, fairie, faery). The fay (fey, fae) also include elves, sprites,
pixies, brownies, mermaids, dryads, imps, nymphs, and other small mythical creatures.
Verdure: thick green plants growing in a particular place. Verdurous: adjective.
Gloom: (literary) almost total darkness.
Mossy: covered with moss.
Moss: a very small green or yellow plant without flowers that spreads over damp surfaces, rocks,
trees, etc.

Bough: (formal or literary) a large branch of a tree.

Embalm: to reserve a dead body from decay by using spices or chemicals.
Endow: (formal) to give something to somebody.

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Thicket: mass of shrubs and small trees, growing close together.
Hawthorn: a thorny shrub or tree with white or pink flowers and small dark red berries.
Eglantine: a type of wild rose.
Dewy: with dew
Dew: the very small drops of water that form on the ground, etc. during the night.
Musk- rose: a type of rose with large white flowers. haunt: noun. A place that somebody visits often
or where they spend a lot of time.
Eve: (old use or literary) evening.

VI

Darkling: adj. (literary) becoming dark or connected with the dark.

Muse: verb. To think carefully about sth. For a time, ignoring what is happening around you.
Pour: to make a liquid or other substance flow from a container in a continuous way.
Requiem: a song or musical service for the repose of the dead.
Sod: a person you are annoyed with????

VII

Tread: verb. To put your foot down while you are stepping or walking.
Passing: adj. Brief, lasting only for a short period of time and then disappearing.

Ruth:

The great-grandmother of King David, known for her kindness and faithfulness. Not an Israelite
herself, she married an Israelite who had come to her country with his family. Ruth's husband died,
and her mother-in-law, Naomi, set out to return to the country of the Israelites. Ruth insisted on
accompanying Naomi, saying, “Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge.” In
the country of the Israelites, Ruth married Boaz, a rich relative of her dead husband; Boaz had been
attracted to Ruth by her generosity. Her story is told in the Book of Ruth in the Old Testament.

Amid: (preposition) In the middle of or during sth. Especially sth. That causes excitement or fear.
Oft- times: (old use) often.
Casement: noun. A window that opens on hinges like a door.
Perilous: adj. (formal or literary) very dangerous.
Forlorn: adj. (of a place) not cared, empty.
Foam: a mass of very small air bubbles on the surface of a liquid.

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VIII

Toll: verb. When a bell tolls or sb tolls it, it is rung slowly many times, especially as sign that sb has
died.
Elf: a creature like a small person with pointed ears who has magic powers.?????
Plaintive: adj. Sounding sad, especially in a weak complaining way/ mournful.
Anthem: hymn (himno).
Fade: to disappear gradually.
Meadow: a field covered in grass used especially for hay. (pradera).
Glade: noun (literary) a small open area of grass in a wood or a forest.
Stream: a small narrow river.
Fled: past of flee. To leave a person very quickly.
‘tis: it is.
Sole: only, unique.

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