By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Anecdote for Fathers’ is not one of William Wordsworth’s best-known poems. First published in the landmark 1798 collection Lyrical Ballads, which Wordsworth co-authored with Coleridge, ‘Anecdote for Fathers’ is narrated by a father who recalls going for a walk with his young son, and coming to realise that the boy’s innocence contains more wisdom than the father’s senior years. ‘A father can learn from his son, too’ might be a concise way of summarising this poem.
Anecdote for Fathers
I have a boy of five years old;
His face is fair and fresh to see;
His limbs are cast in beauty’s mold
And dearly he loves me.
One morn we strolled on our dry walk,
Or quiet home all full in view,