Composed While the Author Was Engaged in Writing a Tract Occasioned by the Convention of Cintra
Composed While the Author Was Engaged in Writing a Tract Occasioned by the Convention of Cintra - context Summary
Composed Amid Cintra Controversy
Wordsworth wrote this short lyric while drafting a political tract about the Convention of Cintra (Peninsular War). He withdraws from worldly corruption into wild landscapes, using Nature as a moral and contemplative school to weigh Spain’s suffering and to seek prophetic hopes for freedom. The poem frames poetic thought as a principled, inward response to a contemporary military and diplomatic crisis. Written 1809; published 1819 in Poems, in Two Volumes.
Read Complete AnalysesNOT 'mid the world's vain objects that enslave The free-born Soul--that World whose vaunted skill In selfish interest perverts the will, Whose factions lead astray the wise and brave-- Not there; but in dark wood and rocky cave, And hollow vale which foaming torrents fill With omnipresent murmur as they rave Down their steep beds, that never shall be still: Here, mighty Nature! in this school sublime I weigh the hopes and fears of suffering Spain; For her consult the auguries of time, And through the human heart explore my way; And look and listen--gathering, whence I may, Triumph, and thoughts no bondage can restrain.
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