The Excursion – poemat angielskiego romantyka Williama Wordswortha[1]. W zamierzeniu autora miał on być częścią większej całości zatytułowanej The Recluse[2], obejmującej również utwór Preludium. The Excursion ukazał się w 1814[3]. Utwór został napisany wierszem białym (blank verse)[1], czyli nierymowanym pentametrem jambicznym.
- 'Twas summer, and the sun had mounted high:
- Southward the landscape indistinctly glared
- Through a pale steam; but all the northern downs,
- In clearest air ascending, showed far off
- A surface dappled o'er with shadows flung
- From brooding clouds; shadows that lay in spots
- Determined and unmoved, with steady beams
- Of bright and pleasant sunshine interposed;
- To him most pleasant who on soft cool moss
- Extends his careless limbs along the front
- Of some huge cave, whose rocky ceiling casts
- A twilight of its own, an ample shade,
- Where the wren warbles, while the dreaming man,
- Half conscious of the soothing melody,
- With side-long eye looks out upon the scene,
- By power of that impending covert, thrown
- To finer distance.