There are few poets who were more influential than Wordsworth. He was one of the people who instigated the Romantic movement in Britain. In his youth, he had revolutionary ideas, although he changed his political views in later life.
Here is a brief documentary about his life, which contains some information about The Prelude: William Wordsworth
Excerpt from The Prelude
And in the frosty season, when
the sun
Was set, and visible for many a mile
The cottage windows through the twilight
blaz’d,,
I heeded not their summons:- happy time
It was, indeed, for all of us; to me
It was a time of rapture: clear and loud
The village clock toll’d six; I wheeled about,
Proud and exulting like an untir’d horse
That cares not for his home. - All shod with
steel,
We hiss’d along the polished ice, in games
Confederate, imitative of the chace
And woodland pleasures, the resounding horn,
The pack loud bellowing, and the hunted hare.
So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
And not a voice was idle; with the din
Meanwhile, the precipices rang aloud;
The leafless trees, and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron, while the distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound
Of melancholy, not unnoticed, while the stars,
Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west
The orange sky of evening died away.
