William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth’s poetry and his ideas were very compelling to me as a reader. His view of nature as being divine brought me back to the days when I was younger. It allowed me to remember when I use to run in the woods and play at the beach and jump in the waves carefree. I would marvel at nature and its peacefulness that it brought to me. I still look at a beautiful mountain scene, a sunset over the beach, or a beautiful flower garden sometime in awe, but not in the same innocent way I did as a child. In this blog, I’m going to focus on Wordsworth’s poem “It is a beauteous Evening” found on page 235 of our text. This poem specifically stood out to me in my reading because of the vivid images Wordsworth paints of an ocean sunset. In addition, his fluid view of nature and God and how they intertwine in Wordsworth’s mind can easily be identified. He wrote this poem in 1802 on the beach near Calais while with his daughter Caroline. It is a Petrarchan sonnet consisting of 14 lines and 2 parts, an octet and sestet.

The octet introduces the reader to Wordsworth’s view of nature as being divine by combining nature and religious images. In the second line of the poem, he describes the atmosphere and time on the beach as the “holy time” and says that it is “quiet as a Nun/ Breathless with adoration.” Nature is quiet all around him “breathless” of the pure and perfect of the setting sun. On lines 3-4, the sun is described as “sinking down in its tranquility” and he goes on to say, “The gentleness of heaven is on the Sea.” The sun is peacefully and calmly setting in Wordsworth’s eyes, and as the colors fill the sky, a beautiful and almost breathtaking image is created of heaven lying on the sea. He then demands the reader to “Listen!” Wordsworth gives divine characteristics in describing the sound of the ocean. He states, “the mighty Being is awake/ And doth with his eternal motion make/ A sound like thunder – everlastingly.” The ocean’s eternality in the poem can be compared to any god who has this quality of living forever. Also, the power and importance of the ocean to Wordsworth can be heard in the poem as it is described, “a sound like thunder – everlastingly.”

In the next part of the poem, the sestet, the focus shifts from Wordsworth’s view of nature to his daughter who is with him on the beach. The shift is made suddenly and is made to grab the reader’s attention. He declares, “Dear Child! Dear Girl!” He then proceeds to speak to his child who he sees as “untouch’d by solemn thought” but still not any “less divine.” His point here is that even though the child does not revere in the nature surrounding them as he does, it does not make her any less divine. As a child, she is innately one with nature as lines 12-13 strive to explain. Her innocence of the world she lives in allows her to be one with nature as she “liest in Abraham’s bosom all the year” and “worshipp’st at the Temple’s inner shrine.” The child’s innocence is even more deeply displayed in the last line of the sonnet in that God is with the child even when it is unknown. A child is so innocent that they do not have to know that God is there to be present.