THE ROMANTIC POETS

On April 7^th the Royal Mail issued a set of 10 First Class stamps to celebrate the Romantic Poets. This coincided with the 250^th anniversary of one of the notable poets of the period; William Wordsworth.

This series of stamps identifies 10 Romantic Poets across the 18^th and 19^th century; John Clare, Samuel Coleridge Taylor, William Blake, Sir Walter Scott, Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Wordsworth, Mary Robinson, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, John Keats  and Lord Byron.

Each stamp takes a short line from a particular poem with an appropriate accompanying piece of original artwork by the acclaimed linocut artist Linda Farquharson.

When we use or hear the word “ romantic” we perhaps instinctively think of being in love. But we also use the word to convey the sense of a romantic setting; a moonlit night, a lake in the mountains, a skylark rising over a meadow, a rainbow in the sky. We then search for particular words and language to describe the feelings associated with this romantic setting. 

The particular poems chosen for this series of stamps were:

John Clare – ‘The Progress of Rhyme’
Samuel Coleridge Taylor – ‘ Frost at Midnight’
William Blake –‘Auguries of Innocence’
Sir Walter Scott – ‘ The Lady of the Lake’
Percy Bysshe Shelley – ‘To a Skylark’
William Wordsworth – ‘ The Rainbow’
Mary Robinson – Ode to the Snowdrop’
Letitia Elizabeth Landon – ‘ The Fate of Adelaide’
John Keats – Ode on a Grecian Urn’
Lord Byron – She Walks in Beauty’

Over the next few weeks  I will be publishing Poetry Blogs for each poet reflecting on particular poem mentioned and, of course, the poet.

But in the meantime as this is the 250 anniversary of Wordsworth birth it is time to read again perhaps his most famous poem, “Daffodils”.

I wandered lonely as a cloud 

That floats on high o'er vales and hills, 

When all at once I saw a crowd, 

A host, of golden daffodils; 

Beside the lake, beneath the trees, 

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. 

Continuous as the stars that shine 

And twinkle on the milky way, 

They stretched in never-ending line 

Along the margin of a bay:   

Ten thousand saw I at a glance, 

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. 

The waves beside them danced; but they 

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: 

A poet could not but be gay, 

In such a jocund company: 

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought 

What wealth the show to me had brought: 

For oft, when on my couch I lie 

In vacant or in pensive mood,   

They flash upon that inward eye 

Which is the bliss of solitude; 

And then my heart with pleasure fills, 

And dances with the daffodils.

This was originally composed in 1802 (Original manuscript dated 1802 held in the British Library) and first published in 1804. It was written at Town-end Grasmere. The inspiration for the poem came from a walk Wordsworth took with his sister Dorothy around Glencoyne Bay, Ullswater, in the Lake District.

Submitted by Roger Verrall – November 2010 

References

THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, London Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London 1904

The Romantic Poets, Royal Mail Stamps Presentation Pack No 584, April 2020