Post by Psalms on Mar 5, 2010 21:31:34 GMT
A Wordsworthian scene:
The silent still morning of a city at rest; a city asleeping its night’s repose, the beginning of industry’s day has yet to arrive. Taking a pause from his countryside rambling, William Wordsworth stills for a moment at the top slight incline of the bridge’s curved brick paved surface. There before him lays a true aberration of nature — something made from natural substances, yet so unlike anything else she has of her nature’s substance produced before: a permanent dwelling place for a herd of mankind. Is it truly natural?, or is it something like a cancerous growth upon the once pristine English countryside. Unable to accept what he sees, Wordsworth decides to personify in a vein attempt to reconcile the site to his natural mind. He sees nature alive and lovely around and through the sleeping giant.
In the first line of the Sonnet, he makes a definitive statement: as far as he knows, there is nothing more that the earth can offer than the scene stretched out before him. From what he’s witnessed of the world, which must be a lot for to state so emphatically, this scene is the pinnacle. Following that introductory line, he goes on to state that only a dullard, a simple bumpkin, would not take pause for contemplation at such a revelation of the natural scene-scape; that there would be a true barrenness of soul in such a man who would not still his pursuits for a moment to drink in the majesty of what lays before him.
The City, (personifying, he puts it in caps, City) the city instead of showing its usual scene belching up heavenward clouds of noxious fumes from unnatural industry, is this morning seen personified, like a living, sleeping person. This morning it’s wearing what he sees as a garment of beauty,— a cloak of the beauty of nature, his life-long true love; but not everything of nature in all of its beatified aspects; this day, simply the beginning of day.
Starting in (5), he names some of the more prominent features which particularly exemplified his notice. First of all, the city lays out before him: silent and bare. Not yet roused, it makes not a sound, not yet stirring does it lay. The woolen grey garment of soot airborne in smoke has this day has not yet begun. It lays vulnerable to the devices of man. The specifics of note begin with a mode of transport, then a building of defense, next the rounded ceilings of residences and shops, then venues of entertainment, and finally a building of man’s attempt to get near to God. An interesting use of an end-rhyme couplet should be noted: the words lie and sky in (6) and (7). Normally people “lie”, and objects “lay”, but in this case the objects which are seen in the city lie, not the people. And also of particular interest, the word Temple is joined to the last word of (6), lie. I wonder if he’s stating his opinion about either the Catholic Church or the Church of England here, or simply one aspect of their activity. Not having yet been clothed in their daily smoke, these objects of the city, these man-made symbols lay open and plain— Open unto the fields, and to the sky (7). The earth and heaven both behold their beauty this late summer’s morn.
The next line makes mention the sun; its bright and golden rays having traveled the many miles to earth, now giving vibrancy and a color of gold as they reflect back to the seeing eyes of Wordsworth. Again, a scene unobstructed by the smoke and the grind of the yet approaching day.
Wordsworth’s observation shifts in verses (9, 10), beholding now the scenery surrounding the personified city. He reflects that never before has the sun shown so beautifully upon the city’s surrounding objects of nature, steeping them like tea in the golden broth of the morning sunlight. Looking off in the distance, he sees and once again remembers the rolling hills and the gently sloping rock-strewn valleys of his childhood days: the rocks he stepped over and around as he made his way through hill and dale seeing them again the same as they were those so many years ago and now seen again so freshly anew, to his poetic delight.
Along with the gentle morning sunlight, a sense of calm now bathes over him. It astonishes him. He begins to lists his feelings now as the Muse brings him inspiration. Never before has he beheld such a sight, never before has he felt such a calm as deep as the calm he now feels this morning. Solitary, like his moment, an exclamation mark closes verse (11). He, and it, stands at straight attention, totally absorbed in the moment.
In verse (12) he describes the river as it glides along, here giving the idea of the similarity to a snake ~ the first instance of a hint of a creature. Again a personification as he gives it a gender, describing it “his” as it glides along sweetly on its course. Immediately after that observation, in verse (13), he exclaims Dear God! as if to get the thought of God back into the poem, then adjoining it to the description of houses, as they seem still asleep in the still soft morning. The last line of the poem (14), again referring back to the previous line, the houses, refers to them as the heart of the city. No doubt the people inside are what he means by Heart because they are the actual hearted ones,— the very life-source of the city.
I began this paper with the idea that it is a poem about personifying the city, which it is, but I think there is also a deeper meaning, one not immediately apparent with a superficial reading. I think a more spiritual interpretation is what he was trying to convey to his readers.
As you recall, the Christian church has always described Jesus as a bridge between God and man. Also, with Wordsworth standing on Westminster Bridge, named, I believe, after the Westminster Cathedral — A Catholic church, he is in effect standing as Jesus, looking at the city, like Jesus did on the outskirts of Jerusalem, as he mourned their unbelief, as recorded in the gospels.
Then there is the Themes River, gliding along in a snake-like fashion, past the city, as if he just goes about his daily activities, described in the poem as “sweet”. The devil often presents his actions initially as sweet, but with an underlying diabolical intent, to deceive the innocent, while the houses are asleep.
And with the positioning of the words temples and lie in verse (6), six also being a part of the satanic number 666, the devil could be said to have just carried out an aspect of his work by getting the churches to believe and propagate various lies upon the innocent and naive populous.
With these possible interpretations of the inner aspects in the action of the poem, Wordsworth might have been making a statement about the Christian religion of his day — the Clergy being sometimes corrupted, and spreading occasionally false doctrines to an unsuspecting people. The devil’s work indeed.
The last line of the poem may give the final summation: That mighty heart is lying still. A heart that is lying still is a dead heart. The hearts of the entire city may have been darkened by diabolical action,— the very spiritual life of it has been extinguished. Though they may still seem to be alive in outward appearance, they are in fact only alive in form, but in truth, truly dead in spirit.
