April is National Poetry Month

COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, SEPT. 3, 1802
by William Wordsworth

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!


One of my favorite poems is “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge” by William Wordsworth. I like it because I am photographer and the poem to me is like a great photograph. A moment captured that flows into your imagination like a river. Once read or “seen” it colors your world forever. I read the poem in college. I have never seen a sunrise since that didn’t evoke the heartbeat rhythm of this sonnet. This photo that I took here in Newburyport is one of those moments for me.

John