Daffodils

“My Heart Leaps Up” by William Wordsworth (1802)

This short lyric was also written at Dove Cottage, around the same time that Wordsworth took his famous walk and saw the daffodils with Dorothy. It is also known by an alternative title, “Rainbow.” Like “Daffodils,” it ties nature together with the speaker’s inner thoughts. Again, a natural object is looked at with awe, causing a reaction within the speaker, whose “heart leaps up when I behold / a rainbow in the sky” (Lines 1-2). As in “Daffodils,” there is a spiritual component, as the speaker hopes for their “days to be / Bound to each by natural piety” (Lines 8-9). Additionally, Wordsworth shows gratitude for the natural object—in this case, the rainbow—which he can recollect in order to inspire awe from day to day.

“The World Is Too Much With Us” by William Wordsworth (1802)

In this sonnet, also published in 1807’s Poems, in Two Volumes, the speaker bemoans industrialization and feels that in “[g]etting and spending, we lay waste our powers” (Line 2). Instead of appreciating nature, they note “we have given our hearts away” (Line 4) to machines and money. This is followed by images of a personified Nature’s dismay, and her gathering up of her forces like “sleeping flowers” (Line 7).