dots-menu
×

Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Verse  »  533. The Sonnet i

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

William Wordsworth. 1770–1850

533. The Sonnet i

NUNS fret not at their convent’s narrow room, 
  And hermits are contented with their cells, 
  And students with their pensive citadels; 
Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom, 
Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,         5
  High as the highest peak of Furness fells, 
  Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells: 
In truth the prison unto which we doom 
Ourselves no prison is: and hence for me, 
  In sundry moods, ’twas pastime to be bound  10
  Within the Sonnet’s scanty plot of ground; 
Pleased if some souls (for such there needs must be) 
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty, 
  Should find brief solace there, as I have found.