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Home  »  English Poetry II  »  411. Admonition to a Traveller

English Poetry II: From Collins to Fitzgerald.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

William Wordsworth

411. Admonition to a Traveller


YES, there is holy pleasure in thine eye!

—The lovely cottage in the guardian nook

Hath stirr’d thee deeply; with its own dear brook,

Its own small pasture, almost its own sky!

But covet not the abode; O do not sigh

As many do, repining while they look;

Intruders who would tear from Nature’s book

This precious leaf with harsh impiety:

—Think what the home must be if it were thine,

Even thine, though few thy wants!—Roof, window, door,

The very flowers are sacred to the Poor,

The roses to the porch which they entwine:

Yea, all that now enchants thee, from the day

On which it should be touch’d would melt away!