This Day in History: 1770-04-07

William Wordsworth one of the great romantic poets, born this day in 1770. Wordsworth thought the Industrial revolution was an “outrage done to nature” and was appalled that people were no longer “breathing fresh air” or “treading the green earth.” From Tintern Abby:
… If I should be, where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence, wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came,
Unwearied in that service…