William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

“Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room”

 
 
 

Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room

 

And hermits are contented with their cells;

 

And students with their pensive citadels;

 

Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,

 5

Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,

 

High as the highest Peak of Furness-fells,

 

Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells:

 

In truth the prison, into which we doom

 

Ourselves, no prison is: and hence for me,

 10

In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound

 

Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground;

 

Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be)

 

Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,

 

Should find brief solace there, as I have found.

 
 

Scraped from http://sonnets.org/wordsworth.htm and marked up.

Remarks:

Wordsworth's stamp on the tradition. The strength and sinuosity of Wordsworth's line is in evidence, driving the poem forward. Consider particularly the enjambment across the turn, on the word “doom”.