Blogs by Hilary Hopkins

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June 10, 2013 / Wordsworth Saw It—Do You?

Earth hath 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 glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor, 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!

England’s poet of nature, William Wordsworth, stopped upon London’s Westminster Bridge in the very early morning of July 31st, 1803, not long past sunrise, and he saw how first light lay upon the scene, and how the great city lay quiet in that light, like a wonderful animal in sleep.   He who wrote with passion of flowers, trees, stars and water had also the genius and the imagination to see and to show us the ravishments of the human-made world.

Beauty (like boredom!) resides solely in the eyes and mind of the beholder.  Look around you today.  See beauty!