In spite of my unnatural antipathy to Wordsworth’s later works, I really, really love this poem! It captures autumn and awe of London – or any city! - so beautifully! Any morning, waking up before everyone else is awake, and looking at the surroundings...the last two lines say it all. Still more, it captures the sense of pre-Victorian London, when industry was thriving and the ships were busily trading all over the world. I know that the Victorian and earlier 19th Century London - primarily as depicted by Dickens - was filled with squalor and deprivation but it was also giving birth to the many, many advances we enjoy today. Nostalgic, beautiful and just so lovely....
“Upon Westminster Bridge”
Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of heart who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a mantle 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.
Ne'er 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!
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