Tuesday 1 February 2011

The unfurling city...



My picture was taken from the top of a high tower yesterday -- such a hopeful blue sky soaring over London that I couldn't quote The Waste Land ('Unreal City, Under the brown fog of a winter dawn...') So here is Wordsworth instead, from 'Upon Westminster Bridge'.

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...

8 comments:

Lilacs said...

That has made the hairs on my arms stand up! Lovely.

kairu said...

What a beautiful view!

Clear blue skies over here, too, on the far side of the world.

Stephen Pope said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Stephen Pope said...

In these revolutionary times, as despots tremble, I'm transposing my favourite Wordsworth stanza from 1790s Paris to Tahir Square in 2011...

''Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven! Oh! times,
In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
The attraction of a country in romance!''

jaywalker said...

Recently watched Owen Sheer's BBC TV series on British poets and his reading Wordsworth's sonnet and the accompanying film shots of London were wonderful. It was such a good series I think I will buy a copy to watch again. It's one of those poems you learn at school and which stay with you all your life.

Poetry of the Day said...

nice picture, its so breath taking

- <3 Famous Poetry about life

enid said...

I love those that last line so much. When I had to commute far to work I would keep these lines in my head. I am so pleased you have clear skies and hope that you are feeling 100 % as my granny used to say.

Justine Picardie said...

Thank you, everyone. Pearl grey skies this morning, with a gleam of sunlight...