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The City, Three Ways

Wednesday · July 29, 2026 · William Wordsworth’s sonnet on London seen from Westminster Bridge, Gustave Caillebotte’s painting of a rainy Paris intersection, and Charles Meryon’s etching of Paris viewed from the roof of Notre-Dame.
I · Poem

Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

William Wordsworth · published 1807

The poem is a single sonnet, fourteen lines set in iambic pentameter, a metre of five beats to the line. Its first eight lines, the octave, rhyme ABBAABBA; its closing six, the sestet, rhyme CDCDCD. The speaker stands on Westminster Bridge in London and names what the early morning uncovers — ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples, the fields and river beyond, and the quiet houses. The sonnet first appeared in print in 1807.[1]

Earth has not any thing 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 · “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802,” published 1807
About the maker
William Wordsworth (1770–1850) was an English Romantic poet, born in Cockermouth, Cumberland.[2]
In 1798 he and Samuel Taylor Coleridge published Lyrical Ballads, a founding book of English Romanticism.[2]
This sonnet was first collected in his Poems, in Two Volumes of 1807.[1]
He was appointed Poet Laureate of Britain in 1843 and held the post until his death.[2]
Sources
  1. Academy of American Poets (Poets.org) — poem text
  2. Poetry Foundation — William Wordsworth biography
II · Painting

Paris Street; Rainy Day

Gustave Caillebotte · 1877

Pedestrians move across a wide, wet intersection under a grey sky, several of them holding dark umbrellas. A man and a woman in winter coats walk toward the viewer at the right, close enough to fill the foreground. Behind them a wedge-shaped stone apartment block, of the kind built during Baron Haussmann’s rebuilding of Paris, splits the street in two. The pavement is set with rain-slicked cobblestones, and a green iron lamppost rises near the centre. The picture is a large oil on canvas, measuring 212.2 by 276.2 centimetres.[1]

Pedestrians with umbrellas cross a wide, wet cobblestone Paris intersection; a couple in dark coats walks toward the viewer past a pale stone apartment building.
Gustave Caillebotte, Paris Street; Rainy Day (Rue de Paris, temps de pluie), 1877. Oil on canvas, 212.2 × 276.2 cm. Art Institute of Chicago.[1]
About the maker
Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894) was a French painter, born in Paris to a wealthy family.[2]
He showed this painting at the third Impressionist exhibition in Paris in April 1877, where it was listed as catalogue number one.[1]
Alongside his own work, he bought paintings by Monet, Renoir and their circle and helped fund the group’s exhibitions.[2]
The canvas entered the Art Institute of Chicago in 1964 as part of the Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection.[1]
Sources
  1. The Art Institute of Chicago — Paris Street; Rainy Day
  2. Encyclopaedia Britannica — Gustave Caillebotte
III · Etching

Le Stryge (The Vampire)

Charles Meryon · 1853

A horned, winged stone creature leans on a high stone railing, its head propped against its hands. Below and beyond it stretch the rooftops of Paris, laid down in fine etched lines. A tall Gothic tower, the Tour Saint-Jacques, rises from the city in the distance, and a scattering of birds crosses the sky. The print is a small etching, its plate measuring 17.1 by 12.9 centimetres, and it belongs to Meryon’s series Eaux-fortes sur Paris, or Etchings of Paris.[1]

A horned, winged stone creature leans on a high stone railing above the rooftops of Paris, a tall tower rising in the distance and birds crossing the sky.
Charles Meryon, Le Stryge (The Vampire), 1853. Etching, plate 17.1 × 12.9 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington.[1]
About the maker
Charles Meryon (1821–1868) was a French etcher, born in Paris.[2]
He served as an officer in the French navy, sailing to the South Pacific, before he turned to printmaking.[2]
Being colour-blind, he gave up painting and worked instead in black-and-white etching.[2]
Le Stryge is one plate from his series of etched views of Paris, made in the early 1850s.[1]
Sources
  1. National Gallery of Art — Le stryge (The Vampire)
  2. Encyclopaedia Britannica — Charles Meryon