Wordsworth must have seen some stunning landscapes both at his home in the Lake District and on his many travels, but he still thinks that the sun could not light up any natural landscape as delightfully as it does the cityscape at dawn: ‘Never did sun more beautifully steep/ In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill’. The ‘first splendor’ is a charming way to describe that initial burst of sunshine after the dark of night. We can see how content the poet is feeling: ‘Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!’ While this beautiful sight has lightened his heart and soothed his spirit, there is no doubt that the prospect of meeting his daughter and his long lost love Annette must be contributing to his feeling of joy. The way things had been left unresolved for so long must have concerned him, and the deep calm he is feeling is perhaps the profound relief of resolving his concerns.
The poem concludes with a charming description of the Thames, gently meandering through the sleeping city: ‘The river glideth at his own sweet will’. This line is a reminder that, for all the impact humans have had upon this urban environment, the city of London has grown up around the river. It has had to respect the river’s course, and so nature will always come first and last. Wordsworth uses an exclamation to emphasise how still the city is: ‘Dear God! the very houses seem asleep’. The collective beating heart of the city, of its inhabitants or even God Himself, seems to be completely still and at peace: ‘And all that mighty heart is lying still!’
