Poem of the Day: ‘Lines Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802’

Begin with an outrageous claim, they say. For example: “Earth has not any thing to show more fair: / Dull would he be of soul who could pass by / A sight so touching in its majesty,” about London at the dawn of the nineteenth century, of all unlikely things. William Wordsworth (1770–1850) makes just that claim, of course, at the start of this famous sonnet, in which a sleeping cityscape early in the morning becomes charged with the sublime. The sonnet form is Italianate, with an abbaabbacdcdcd rhyme scheme, but the spirit is pure English Romantic exaltation. This is not the London of tanners and chandlers, whores and beggars. It is not the London of slop jars emptied into streets, not the London whose air Thomas Tryon once characterized as “unwholesome,” filled with “stinking, gross, sulphurous Smoaks.” At least for an instant, on one brilliant autumn morning, it is Wordsworth’s London: silent and shining, a vision. Lines Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 by William Wordsworth Earth has not any thing to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still! ___________________________________________ With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by Joseph Bottum with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, the Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.

Poem of the Day: ‘Lines Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802’

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