• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Poetry Catalog

We honor great poets. We honor great poetry.

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Submit Your Work
  • Writers
  • Advertising / Subscription

A Character, By: William Wordsworth

April 3, 2023 by Editors

A Character, By: William Wordsworth

I marvel how Nature could ever find space
For so many strange contrasts in one human face:
There’s thought and no thought, and there’s paleness and bloom
And bustle and sluggishness, pleasure and gloom.

There’s weakness, and strength both redundant and vain;
Such strength as, if ever affliction and pain
Could pierce through a temper that’s soft to disease,
Would be rational peace, a philosopher’s ease.

There’s indifference, alike when he fails or succeeds,
And attention full ten times as much as there needs;
Pride where there’s no envy, there’s so much of joy;
And mildness, and spirit both forward and coy.

There’s freedom, and sometimes a diffident stare
Of shame scarcely seeming to know that she’s there,
There’s virtue, the title it surely may claim,
Yet wants heaven knows what to be worthy the name.

This picture from nature may seem to depart,
Yet the Man would at once run away with your heart;
And I for five centuries right gladly would be
Such an odd such a kind happy creature as he.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest

Related

Filed Under: Poems

Get Every Post In Your Inbox ๐Ÿ˜ณ

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.
(This is not the newsletter.)

Primary Sidebar

Never Miss A Poem (Newsletter)

Be Social

  • X
  • Facebook

Top Posts & Pages

  • By The Babe Unborn, By: G.K. Chesterton
    By The Babe Unborn, By: G.K. Chesterton
  • O'er The Wide Earth, On Mountain And On Plain, By: William Wordsworth
    O'er The Wide Earth, On Mountain And On Plain, By: William Wordsworth
  • Boom Box, By: Mary Bone
    Boom Box, By: Mary Bone
  • Prayer Mats, By: Mary Bone
    Prayer Mats, By: Mary Bone
  • All Clear, By: Paul White
    All Clear, By: Paul White
  • Clarion, By: Paul White
    Clarion, By: Paul White
  • My Mother's Thyroid, By: Diane Elayne Dees
    My Mother's Thyroid, By: Diane Elayne Dees
  • I Could Stay Lost, By: Mary Bone
    I Could Stay Lost, By: Mary Bone
  • The Mimic, By: Mary Bone
    The Mimic, By: Mary Bone
  • Potato Digger, By: Mary Bone
    Potato Digger, By: Mary Bone

Advertising/Subscribing = Loving

Buy Me A Coffee

Sign up for the newsletter. Get a gift.

Footer

Made with โค in Lubbock, TX.

Poetry Catalog Sponsors

Haiku Examples

Search

Copyright © 2025 ยท Magazine Pro on Genesis Framework ยท WordPress ยท Log in