William Wordsworth, ‘London, 1802’.
‘Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour’. With this opening line, William Wordsworth (1770-1850) begins one of his most famous sonnets.
Although he’s best-known in the popular consciousness as the poet who praised daffodils and wandered lonely as a cloud, ‘London, 1802’ shows a Wordsworth who is very critical of England and its people, and looking back nostalgically to a happier time in English history:
O raise us up, return to us again,
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power!
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free …
