Introduction

Lyrical Ballads is a collection of poems which is written by two great poets of their time William Wordsworth ; Samuel Taylor Coleridge, its first edition was first published in the 1798. The most of the poems in Lyrical ballads were written by Wordsworth, four poems were contibuted by Coleridge including his most famous poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner". The lyrical ballad is said to have begun the movement of romanticism in english poetry, the basic idea was to take the art of poetry into the reach of common people, in aspect of language and feelings. Its Second Edition was published in 1800, contains some more poems by wordsworth, in this edition Wordsworth also added a preface in which he discribed his thoughts and understanding on poetry. The Lyrical Ballads holds a very important place in english literature, as it significantly tried to change the course of English Poetry and made it to be easily understood by common people. Here I am posting both the 1st and the 2nd edition of Lyrical Ballads, which are freely available on many places on internet. This blog is my tribute to the William Wordsworth and his Lyrical Ballads.

Poor Susan

At the corner of Wood-Street, when day-light appears,
There's a Thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years:
Poor Susan has pass'd by the spot and has heard
In the silence of morning the song of the bird.

'Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? She sees
A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;
Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,
And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.

Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale,
Down which she so often has tripp'd with her pail,
And a single small cottage, a nest like a Jove's,
The only one dwelling on earth that she loves.

She looks, and her heart is in Heaven, but they fade,
The mist and the river, the hill and the shade;
The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,
And the colours have all pass'd away from her eyes.

Poor Outcast! return--to receive thee once more
The house of thy Father will open its door,
And thou once again, in thy plain russet gown,
May'st hear the thrush sing from a tree of its own.

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