The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth. Edited with Memoir by Edward Dowden. In Seven Volumes. Volume 2

Appointed Poet Laureate of England in 1843, William Wordsworth developed British Romanticist poetry alongside his close friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Wordsworth's best-known poems include I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, The Solitary Reaper, The Excursion, and The Prelude, the last two of which are autobiographical and rich in philosophical content. Wordsworth's poetry demonstrates both his love of nature and his love of humanity; he often uses pastoral images to meditate upon the beauty and power of natural phenomena.