It is a beauteous Evening, calm and free;
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;
The gentleness of heaven broods on the Sea:
Listen! the mighty Being is awake
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder−everlastingly.
Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Thou liest in Abraham's ***** all the year;
And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.
“ shortly before he married mary hutchinson, wordsworth returned to france to see his former mistress annette vallon, whom he would likely have married ten years earlier had the war between france and england not separated them.
he returned to visit annette to make arrangements for her and for their child, caroline, who was now a ten-year-old girl. this poem is thought to have originated from a real moment in wordsworth's life, when he walked on the beach with the daughter he had not known for a decade. ”