Just after the turn of the century, I had the privilege of living in Cambridge, England for an academic year with my wife who was doing research at Lucy Cavendish College at Cambridge University. One of my personal highlights was attending a wine tasting at the Cambridge University office of William Wordsworth. There I was in awe as I soaked up the atmosphere of the room where this great poet had studied and written, my “awe” certainly enhanced by very the very fine wine! I was taken by handwritten copies of some of his poetry displayed on the walls and original editions of his work on display. I reveled for a while in the “spirit” of one of my most beloved poets.
This past week the New York Review of Books had a lengthy report of a new book about one of Wordsworth’s most famous lyrical poems, “The Preludes.” This book review by Helen Vendler delves into some of the personal misfortunates that befell Wordsworth in life, especially in his youth, all of which turned him inward and eventually gave expression to beautiful poetic imagery of a soul that had been denied the comfort of traditional life. It reminds me of something W. H. Auden said of W.B. Yeats, “Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.” Wordsworth’s world was often very maddening and it did turn him away from the horror of what he was witnessing toward the subjective comfort of poetic reverie.
I will post a link to the entire book review at the conclusion. Here I would like to share an excerpt from the preludes which has been offering me reassurance for the past 30 years or so, reassuring me that he too saw as did Shakespeare, “There is a Divinity that doeth shape our ends, rough hew them how we may”:
Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows
Like harmony in music; there is a dark
Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles
Discordant elements, makes them cling together
In one society. How strange, that all
The terrors, pains, and early miseries,
Regrets, vexations, lassitudes interfused
Within my mind, should e’er have borne a part,
And that a needful part, in making up
The calm existence that is mine when I
Am worthy of myself! Praise to the end!
Book review by Helen Vendler of Wordsworth’s “Preludes”: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/02/23/wordsworth-heard-voices-in-my-head/
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ADDENDUM–I have diversified this literary effort of mine. In this blog I plan to focus more on poetry and prose. Below you will see two other blogs of mine relevant to spirituality and politics which have lain dormant for most of the past five years. I hope some of you will check them out. However, the boundaries will not be clear as my focus is very broad and my view of life is very eclectic/inclusive/broad-based. Yes, at times too much so!
https://wordpress.com/posts/anerrantbaptistpreacher.wordpress.com
https://wordpress.com/posts/theonlytruthinpolitics.wordpress.com
literary lew 
You describe the effect that being in Woodworth’s office had in you so well. I can almost feel like I’m there. For me, it would be like being in Gauss’s office, or Einstein’s.
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It was really profound. I will never forget it.
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