William Wordsworth

Wordsworth is a GRE heavy-weight, so learn him well. There are, no doubt, other poems of his besides the ones presented here that could possibly show up on the GRE, but these poems, especially the "Lucy poems," are GRE favorites. It is also worth noting that along with Coleridge and Robert Southey, Wordsworth is considered a “Lake poet.”

Preface to Lyrical Ballads* (published with Coleridge)

The Preface to "Lyrical Ballads" is considered a central work of Romantic literary theory. In the Preface, Wordsworth discusses what he sees as the constituents of a new type of poetry, one based on the "real language of men" and which avoids the poetic diction of much eighteenth-century poetry. Wordsworth also gives his famous definition of poetry in the Preface as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings from emotions recollected in tranquility." 

“It Is a Beauteous Evening (Calm and Free)”

IT is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;
The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea:
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder--everlastingly.
Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year;
And worship'st at the Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.

“My Heart Leaps Up (When I Behold)”

My heart leaps up when I behold
                       A rainbow in the sky :
So was it when my life began ;
So is it now I am a man ;
So be it when I shall grow old,
                       Or let me die !
The Child is father of the Man ;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

“The World Is Too Much with Us”

The world is too much with us ; late and soon,
      Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers :
      Little we see in Nature that is ours ;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon !
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon ;
      The winds that will be howling at all hours,
      And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers ;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune ;
It moves us not. – Great God ! I’d rather be
      A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn ;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
      Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea ;
      Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

Lucy poems*

These poems are collectively known as the "Lucy poems," though each is considered a seperate work and is named by its first line; if these poems appear on teh GRE, they will appear seperately.

(i)
Strange fits of passion have I known:
And I will dare to tell,
But in the Lover’s ear alone,
What once to me befell.

When she I loved looked every day
Fresh as a rose in June,
I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath an evening-moon.

Upon the moon I fixed my eye,
All over the wide lea ;
With quickening pace my horse drew nigh
Those paths so dear to me.

And now we reached the orchard-plot ;
And, as we climbed the hill,
The sinking moon to Lucy’s cot
Came near, and nearer still.

In one of those sweet dreams I slept,
Kind Nature’s gentlest boon !
And all the while my eyes I kept
On the descending moon.

My horse moved on ; hoof after hoof
He raised, and never stopped :
When down behind the cottage roof,
At once, the bright moon dropped.

What fond and wayward thoughts will slide
Into a Lover’s head !
‘O mercy !’ to myself I cried,
‘If Lucy should be dead !’

(ii)
She dwelt among the untrodden ways
    Beside the springs of Dove,
A Maid whom there were none to praise
    And very few to love :

A violet by a mossy stone
    Half hidden from the eye !
– Fair as a star, when only one
    Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know
    When Lucy ceased to be ;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
    The difference to me!

(iii)
I travelled among unknown men,
    In lands beyond the sea;
Nor, England ! did I know till then
    What love I bore to thee.

’Tis past, that melancholy dream !
    Nor will I quit thy shore
A second time ; for still I seem
    To love thee more and more.

Among thy mountains did I feel
    The joy of my desire;
And she I cherished turned her wheel
    Beside an English fire.

Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed,
    The bowers where Lucy played;
And thine too is the last green field
    That Lucy’s eyes surveyed.

(iv)
Three years she grew in sun and shower,
Then Nature said, ‘A lovelier flower
    On earth was never sown;
This Child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
    A lady of my own.

‘Myself will to my darling be
Both law and impulse : and with me
    The Girl, in rock and plain,
In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power
    To kindle or restrain.

‘She shall be sportive as the fawn
That wild with glee across the lawn
    Or up the mountain springs;
And hers shall be the breathing balm,
And hers the silence and the calm
    Of mute insensate things.

‘The floating clouds their state shall lend
To her ; for her the willow bend;
    Nor shall she fail to see
Even in the motions of the Storm
Grace that shall mould the Maiden’s form
    By silent sympathy.

‘The stars of midnight shall be dear
To her ; and she shall lean her ear
    In many a secret place
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound
    Shall pass into her face.

‘And vital feelings of delight
Shall rear her form to stately height,
    Her virgin bosom swell;
Such thoughts to Lucy I will give
While she and I together live
    Here in this happy dell.’

Thus Nature spake – The work was done –
How soon my Lucy’s race was ru !
    She died, and left to me
This heath, this calm, and quiet scene;
The memory of what has been,
    And never more will be.

(v)
A slumber did my spirit seal;
    I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
    The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
    She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course,
    With rocks, and stones, and trees.

The Prelude

Here's a link to the Wikipedia page on the The Prelude.

"Tintern Abbey"

Here's a link to the full text.