God's Beauty in the City

This week we enjoyed participating in a conversation hosted by The Trinity Forum. Titled "Children of Prometheus: Technology and the Good Life," the curriculum took us into classic and contemporary literature about what it means to be human in a technological age. One of the readings was William Wordsworth's "Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1802." In it, the poet describes the beauty of the reflected glory of God as the early morning light strikes London:

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, theaters, 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 splendor, 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!