Which Romantic Poet Should You Go Camping With?

You and William Butler Yeats will have a fine time traveling the highlands and valleys, and he will teach you to listen to the history and the souls and the heartache entrenched within the soil. Any good camper knows the power of nature to call up memories and questions of life and of love and of the power of creation, so don’t stare too long at your feet. Instead, let you heart half open and your head remain lost in the clouds and send imagination forth.

I pace upon the battlements and stare
On the foundations of a house, or where
Tree, like a sooty finger, starts from earth;
And send imagination forth
Under the day’s declining beam, and call
Images and memories
From ruin or from ancient trees,
For I would ask a question of them all.

Blake should be a fine guide on your long walks in the woods. After all, he blazed many trails himself. Blake found a way through woven branches which many have followed. If you should happen upon any animals while out hiking, ask your companion what he thinks and he will surely enlighten you through a wealth of experience, or innocence if it is called for. With Blake at your side you are in good, and powerful hands.

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

With Shelly at your side, you will have much to discuss and imagine. Promethean dreams of freedom and of artistic expression will surely keep you warm late into the night.

Love, from its awful throne of patient power
In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour
Of dread endurance, from the slippery, steep,
And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs
And folds over the world its healing wings.

With Keats at your side, you will have a real appreciation for the fleeting nature of things. With each abundant form of life you see, will come the reminder that date is soon to follow. Knowing that the leaves will soon fall and life will inevitably draw to a close, for some sooner than others, might make you see the beauty in life even more clearly.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?

For a long walk in the woods there’s no better companion than Wordsworth. He can help you find a way to a ruined cottage. During your long woodland strolls, don’t neglect to stop and smell the roses and ruminate on your past. You may find that when looking deeply into nature you may see yourself.

Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!