COMPOSED UPON AN EVENING OF EXTRAORDINARY
SPLENDOUR AND BEAUTY[DD]
Composed 1818.—Published 1820
[Felt, and in a great measure composed, upon the little mount in front of our abode at Rydal. In concluding my notices of this class of poems, it may be as well to observe that among the "Miscellaneous Sonnets" are a few alluding to morning impressions, which might be read with mutual benefit, in connection with these "Evening Voluntaries." See, for example, that one on Westminster Bridge, that composed on a May Morning, the one on the Song of the Thrush, and that beginning—"While beams of orient light shoot wide and high."—I. F.]
In 1820 this was one of the "Poems of the Imagination." In 1837 it was transferred to the "Evening Voluntaries."—Ed.
I
Had this effulgence disappeared
With flying haste, I might have sent,
Among the speechless clouds, a look
Of blank astonishment;
But 'tis endued with power to stay,
And sanctify[328] one closing day,