.png)
.png)
7 April 1700 – 23 April 1850
Taxation celebrates the 250th anniversary of the birth of William Wordsworth – the famous tax collector.
William Wordsworth was born 250 years ago today on 7 April 1770. For most, he is remembered as one of our nation’s most famous poets – perhaps most notably concerning daffodils, clouds and the Lake District. At Taxation magazine we celebrate his appointment as distributor of stamps in Cumbria for which he received an annual salary of £400. He was responsible for a variety of excise taxes, but resigned on becoming poet laureate in 1842; taxation’s loss being the nation’s gain perhaps.
Mutability
From low to high doth dissolution climb,
And sink from high to low, along a scale
Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail;
A musical but melancholy chime,
Which they can hear who meddle not with crime,
Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care.
Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear
The longest date do melt like frosty rime,
That in the morning whitened hill and plain
And is no more; drop like the tower sublime
Of yesterday, which royally did wear
His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain
Some casual shout that broke the silent air,
Or the unimaginable touch of time.
