In this installment, Rachel Blau DuPlessis reads “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1802” by William Wordsworth. DuPlessis is known as a feminist critic and scholar with a special interest in modern and contemporary poetry, and as a poet and essayist. Blue Studios: Poetry and Its Cultural Work, a book of essays, was published by University of Alabama Press in 2006; in the same year, Alabama also reprinted DuPlessis’s classic work The Pink Guitar. Her recent books of poetry are Drafts 1- 38, Toll (Wesleyan University Press, 2001) and DRAFTS. Drafts 39-57, Pledge with Draft, Unnumbered: Précis (Salt Publishing, 2004). A poem from this book appears in Best American Poetry 2004. A new collection, Torques: Drafts 58-76, is due from Salt Publishing in 2007.

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William Wordsworth, “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1802″

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,
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;
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!

admin Uncategorized composed upon westminster bridge sept. 3 1802, rachel blau duplessis, william wordsworth

In this installment, Joshua Weiner reads “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1802” by William Wordsworth. Weiner’s collections of poetry include The World’s Room (2001) and From the Book of Giants (2006). He was a Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize Fellow in Literature at the American Academy in Rome and his writing has appeared in numerous publications, including The Nation, Best American Poetry, and The Threepenny Review. He currently lives in Washington, DC.

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William Wordsworth, “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1802″

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,
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;
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!

admin Uncategorized composed upon westminster bridge sept. 3 1802, joshua weiner, william worsworth