Saturday, August 21, 2010

Quote of the Day (William Wordsworth, on the “Best Portion of a Good Man’s Life”)


“These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration: -- feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love.”—William Wordsworth, “Tintern Abbey” (1798)
The image accompanying this post, by English painter Richard Carruthers, shows Wordsworth in the kind of pensive mood embodied in this poem.

(Thanks to my friend Brian for the suggestion)

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