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I found this in "The Water Babies" fairy tale. It is part of the poem Lines Written in Early Spring by Wordsworth:

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think,
What man has made of man.

What does "To her fair works did Nature link" mean?

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  • This poem is by Wordsworth, although Charles Kingsley does quote it at the head of Chapter 1 of The Water Babies. Also, could you please type out (or copy and paste) quoted text, rather than posting images, since this interferes with indexing your question.
    – Mick
    Commented Jan 18, 2018 at 8:42
  • 'Nature linked my human soul to her fair (i.e. beautiful) works'.
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Jan 18, 2018 at 9:16
  • Poetry is usually open to interpretation (and hence requests for meaning are usually off-topic on ELU). Perhaps 'Being in tune with nature, I could not but contrast this outrageous state of affairs with the beauty and order one often sees there ...'.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jan 18, 2018 at 10:16
  • Mick I'm sorry, I'm new here. kate,Edwin Ashworth Thanks
    – vespertine
    Commented Jan 18, 2018 at 10:42

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In this poem, the Poet is personifying Nature. The line "To her fair works did Nature link" will be easier to understand when one will read it along with the next one.

"To her fair works did Nature link the human soul that through me ran".

Here 'her' refers to the Nature itself. Altogether the lines mean that the soul of the poet connects with the Nature in regards of the beautiful(fair) work that Nature has done.

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  • It helps a lot.
    – vespertine
    Commented Jan 18, 2018 at 10:43
  • A twisted yodaspeak, it appears to be.
    – NVZ ♦
    Commented Jan 18, 2018 at 18:57
  • @NVZ indeed it does.
    – Kshitij
    Commented Jan 19, 2018 at 3:39

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