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Home  »  The Book of Georgian Verse  »  William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Georgian Verse. 1909.

Composed upon the Beach near Calais, 1802

William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

IT is a beauteous Evening, calm and free;

The holy time is quiet as a Nun

Breathless with adoration; the broad sun

Is sinking down in its tranquillity;

The gentleness of heaven broods o’er the Sea:

Listen! the mighty Being is awake,

And doth with his eternal motion make

A sound like thunder—everlastingly.

Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,

If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,

Thy nature is not therefore less divine:

Thou liest in Abraham’s bosom all the year;

And worship’st at the Temple’s inner shrine,

God being with thee when we know it not.