ny 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!

* * * * *

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.

In illustration of it, an anecdote of the late Bishop of St. David's may
be given, as reported by Lord Coleridge.

"In the great debate on the abolition of the Irish Establishment in
1869, the Bishop of St. David's, Dr. Thirlwall, had made a very
remarkable speech, and had been kept till past daybreak in the House
of Lords, before the division was over, and he was able to walk home.
He was then an old man, and in failing health. Some time after, he was
asked whether he had not run some risk to his health, and whether he
did not feel much exhausted. 'Yes,' he said, 'perhaps so; but I was
more than repaid by walking out upon Westminster Bridge after the
division, seeing London in the morning light as Wordsworth saw