Explicating Wordsworth

"London, 1802"

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour;
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.


 Analysis-

This is a sonnet written by Wordsworth, and I chose to explicate it because we didn't get to cover it much in class and I thought it was a beautiful poem. As I said it is a sonnet using iambic pentameter with the rhyme scheme ABBA ABBA CDDECE. The poem is so interesting to me because it is not like the other Wordsworth poems we covered in class: it does not merely focus on nature, but addresses a specific person. The plot of the sonnet follows the rhyme scheme; in the first section (ABBA ABBA), the speaker of the poem addresses John Milton and laments the fact that he is no longer living. The speaker states that England is in need of him because they have forgotten how to be happy, have turned selfish, and need Milton to give them "manners, virtue, freedom, power" (8). In the second section (CDDECE), Wordsworth praises Milton and his character, even calling him "pure...majestic, free" (11). The stark difference between the octave and the sestet is the contrast between the character of the people of England and the character of Milton.


The most important thing that jumped out at me about this poem is that, while the focus of Wordsworth's thoughts is not nature, he still incorporates nature through the characterization of Milton. In the first 8 lines the image of England we get is that of a "...fen/Of stagnant waters" (2-3), while the image of Milton is pure nature: his "soul was like a star" (9), his "voice whose sound was like the sea" (10), and he is "pure as the naked heavens" (11). Milton, for Wordsworth, had an untarnished soul that was intimately connected to nature, while the people of London today are like stagnant waters. He says they are "selfish men" (6) and "have forfeited their...happiness" (5-6). By marking this difference between the two, Wordsworth was putting Milton on a pedestal, as he usually does with the concept of nature.


The poem has a somber tone, and I couldn't help but be a little sad when I read it. If Wordsworth lived today he would be disgusted with the state of things. Not many people today appreciate and love nature the way Wordsworth did, and I think America today would also qualify as a fen of stagnant waters. This poem echoed both Emerson and Thoreau for me, two of my absolute favorite writers. They also noted people's lack of inspiration from nature, and urged us to return to it in order to find true happiness. It seems like Wordsworth wrote "London, 1802" after being disgusted with his fellow man's apathy in life, and was yearning for the time when men like Milton were not few and far between. I felt like the last three lines of the poem show how much Wordsworth deeply respects Milton:

                   So didst thou travel on life's common way,
                   In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
                   The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
                                                            (Lines 12-14)


 Wordsworth obviously had an enduring respect for Milton, and I think it would be good for modern readers to look to this poem often as a reminder as to why Wordsworth thought we were losing our happiness and becoming more selfish. As Thoreau said, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation" (Walden). The answer to this desperation is to be found in nature, which I think is the ultimate meaning of this sonnet.