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FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A:  It appeared in 1807 as No.  II. of “Moods of my own Mind,” and not again till the publication of “Yarrow Revisited” in 1835.—­Ed.]

[Footnote B:  Compare: 

  ’At operas and plays parading,
  Mortgaging, gambling, masquerading.’

Burns, ‘The Two Dogs, a Tale’, II. 124-5.—­Ed.]

“June 8th (1802).—­After tea William came out and walked, and wrote that poem, ‘The sun has long been set,’ etc.  He walked on our own path, and wrote the lines; he called me into the orchard and there repeated them to me.”

(Dorothy Wordsworth’s Journal.) The “Friend in whose presence the lines were thrown off,” was his sister.—­Ed.

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COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, SEPTEMBER 3, 1802

Composed July 31, 1802.—­Published 1807

[Written on the roof of a coach, on my way to France.—­I.F.]

One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”—­Ed.

  Earth has not any thing to show more fair: 
  Dull would he be of soul [1] 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, 5
  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; 10
  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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VARIANTS ON THE TEXT

[Variant 1: 

1807.

  ... heart ...  MS.]

The date which Wordsworth gave to this sonnet on its first publication in 1807, viz.  September 3, 1803,—­and which he retained in all subsequent editions of his works till 1836,—­is inaccurate.  He left London for Dover, on his way to Calais, on the 31st of July 1802.  The sonnet was written that morning as he travelled towards Dover.  The following record of the journey is preserved in his sister’s Journal: 

“July 30. [A]—­Left London between five and six o’clock of the morning outside the Dover coach.  A beautiful morning.  The city, St. Paul’s, with the river—­a multitude of little boats, made a beautiful sight as we crossed Westminster Bridge; the houses not overhung by their clouds of smoke, and were hung out endlessly; yet the sun shone so brightly, with such a pure light, that there was something like the purity of one of Nature’s own grand spectacles.”

This sonnet underwent no change in successive editions.