Nature

"Shall he who gives his days to low pursuits"

by William Wordsworth 1770–1850

From Poetical Works, ed. Knight (1896), vol. VIII

Nature

Shall he who gives his days to low pursuits
Amid the undistinguishable crowd
Of cities, ’mid the same eternal flow
Of the same objects, melted and reduced
To one identity, by differences
That have no law, no meaning, and no end,
Shall he feel yearning to those lifeless forms,
And shall we think that Nature is less kind
To those, who all day long, through a busy life,
Have walked within her sight? It cannot be.

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Composed 1802 (Knight). Fragment from Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, related to passages in The Prelude.

MLA

Wordsworth, William. “"Shall he who gives his days to low pursuits".” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/wordsworth/908/.

Chicago

Wordsworth, William. “"Shall he who gives his days to low pursuits".” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/wordsworth/908/.

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