Part of Wordsworth's poetics, which he discusses at length in his famous Preface to Lyrical Ballads, was poetry as direct experience of emotion, "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recollected in tranquility". This, composed on a bridge overlooking the Thames, and "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey" stand as archetypal examples of Wordsworth's aesthetics.
Note: sometimes editors include the date as part of the title of the poem.
Sept. 3, 1802
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!
-William Wordsworth