To B. R. Haydon
To B. R. Haydon - fact Summary
Dedicated to Benjamin Haydon
This short poem is a direct address to William Wordsworth’s friend Benjamin Robert Haydon, a painter. It affirms creative art as a "high calling" shared by poet and painter, requiring a heroic blend of sensitive feeling and steadfast mind. Wordsworth urges persistence through periods when inspiration and nature decline, arguing that sustaining effort despite obscurity and weakness brings the greatest glory because the struggle is hard.
Read Complete AnalysesHIGH is our calling, Friend!--Creative Art (Whether the instrument of words she use, Or pencil pregnant with ethereal hues,) Demands the service of a mind and heart, Though sensitive, yet, in their weakest part, Heroically fashioned--to infuse Faith in the whispers of the lonely Muse, While the whole world seems adverse to desert. And, oh! when Nature sinks, as oft she may, Through long-lived pressure of obscure distress, Still to be strenuous for the bright reward, And in the soul admit of no decay, Brook no continuance of weak-mindedness-- Great is the glory, for the strife is hard!
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