The 16 Evening Voluntaries, the great work of Wordsworth’s old age, are half-serious, half-playful meditations designed to take the mind away from “its daily share of earth’s unrest” and “the petty pleasures of the garish day,” helping us to “walk content with Nature’s way,” and putting us to rest—the rest that “smooths the way for sleep.”
In today’s busy, high-pressure world, these laid-back poems are even more valuable than they were when the poet first composed them.
