ral teaches by a heaven-taught lay,
Lulling the year, with all its cares, to rest!

COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, SEPT. 3, 1802

Earth has not anything 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 open 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!

Instances of barer style than this may easily be found, instances of
colder style--few better instances of purer style. Not a single
expression (the invocation in the concluding couplet of the second
sonnet perhaps excepted) can be spared, yet not a single expression
rivets the attention. If, indeed, we take out the phrase--

The city now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning,

and the description of the brilliant yellow of autumn--

October's workmanship to rival May,

they have independent value, but they are not noticed in the sonnet
when we read it through; they fall into place there, and being in
their place are not seen. The great subjects of the two sonnets, the
religious aspect of beautiful but grave nature--the religious aspect
of a city about to awaken and be alive, are the only ideas left in our
mind. To Wordsworth has been vouchsafed the last grace of the
self-denying artist; you think neither of him nor his style, but you
cannot help thinking of--you _must_ recall--the exact phrase, the
_very_ sentiment he wished.

Milton's purity is more eager. In the most exciting parts of
Wordsworth--and these sonnets are not very exciting--you always feel,
you never forget, that what you have before you is the excitement of a
recluse. There is nothing of the stir of life; nothing of the _brawl_
of the world. But Milton though always a scholar by trade, though
solitary in old age, was through life intent on great affairs, lived
close to great scenes, watched a revolution, and if not an actor in
it, was at least secretary to the actors. He was familiar--by daily
experience and habitual sympathy--with the earnest debate of ard