Silly Little Country

Composed Upon the Bay Bridge, February 4, 2007

What a privilege to live a life that required me to be crossing San Francisco Bay this morning! And as I sat in the various traffic bottlenecks that allowed me to withhold full attention from the need to drive, I found myself looking around, and being moved by the sheer beauty of all that lay around me as the sun rose over the East Bay.

There is not a single small piece of the Wordsworth that does not apply:

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!

This is the poem that tells me Wordsworth was not a romantic moron. Such moronic folk still live today, especially in the Bay Area.

(And yes, the poem comes to mind to me today as well when I walk along the Thames.)

And yes, I know there is no river in the San Francisco context, but there is a heck of a lot of water!

posted by Alan Adamson @ 9:46 PM