The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man.
‘Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey’ (1798) l. 88
A power is passing from the earth
To breathless Nature’s dark abyss;
But when the great and good depart,
What is it more than this—
That Man who is from God sent forth,
Doth yet again to God return?—
Such ebb and flow must ever be,
Then wherefore should we mourn?
‘Lines on the Expected Dissolution of Mr Fox’ (1807)
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.
‘Lines Written in Early Spring’ (1798)
I chanced to see at break of day
The solitary child.
‘Lucy Gray’ (1800)
The good old rule
Sufficeth them, the simple plan,
That they should take, who have the power,
And they should keep who can.
‘Rob Roy’s Grave’ from ‘Memorials of a Tour in Scotland, 1803’
Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland lass!
‘The Solitary Reaper’ from ‘Memorials of a Tour in Scotland, 1803’
Will no one tell me what she sings?—
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago.
‘The Solitary Reaper’ from ‘Memorials of a Tour in Scotland, 1803’
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain
That has been, and may be again.
‘The Solitary Reaper’ from ‘Memorials of a Tour in Scotland, 1803’
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.
‘The Solitary Reaper’ from ‘Memorials of a Tour in Scotland, 1803’
Degenerate Douglas! Oh, the unworthy lord!
‘Sonnet’ from ‘Memorials of a Tour in Scotland, 1803’