The Full Text of “It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free”
1It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
2The holy time is quiet as a Nun
3Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
4Is sinking down in its tranquility;
5The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea;
6Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
7And doth with his eternal motion make
8A sound like thunder—everlastingly.
9Dear child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
10If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,
11Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
12Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year;
13And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine,
14God being with thee when we know it not.
The Full Text of “It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free”
1It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
2The holy time is quiet as a Nun
3Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
4Is sinking down in its tranquility;
5The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea;
6Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
7And doth with his eternal motion make
8A sound like thunder—everlastingly.
9Dear child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
10If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,
11Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
12Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year;
13And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine,
14God being with thee when we know it not.
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“It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free” Introduction
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Untitled but generally referred to by its first line, "It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free" appears in a sequence of "Miscellaneous Sonnets" in Vol. I of William Wordsworth's Poems, in Two Volumes (1807). The sonnet's speaker appreciates the serene beauty of coastal sunset while on a walk with a "Dear Child" (usually read as the speaker's daughter). Though the girl doesn't seem particularly awestruck by the majestic scenery, the speaker reasons that this is because children feel the majestic presence of God (or nature) all the time. The poem was inspired by a seaside walk Wordsworth took with his daughter Caroline in Calais, France.
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“It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free” Summary
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It's a beautiful, peaceful, leisurely night. The hour of evening prayer services is as hushed as a nun whose love of God takes her breath away. The giant sun is setting calmly. Heaven (the sky or God) seems to watch tenderly over the ocean. Pay attention: God is at work here, and his movements make an eternal, thundering sound (i.e., the sound of the sea). Oh, beloved little girl walking beside me: if you don't seem awestruck in this setting, it doesn't mean you're any less spiritual by nature. It's just that you feel divine comfort all the time, and (as a child) have special access to the holiest experiences; you feel God's presence even when we adults aren't aware of it.
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“It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free” Themes
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The Holiness of Nature
The speaker of "It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free" celebrates the majestic, even holy beauty of the natural world. Out for a walk at sunset, the speaker describes the evening's beauty in reverent terms, comparing its quiet to that of an awestruck "Nun" and sensing the presence of "the mighty Being" (that is, God) behind the vast sky and sea. The poem urges an appreciation for the beauty and power of nature, and also for the divine "Being" that makes such beauty possible.
As the poem’s opening line reveals, the speaker is struck by the world’s peace and quiet during an evening stroll by the sea. The night is “beauteous” and “calm,” the sun “sinking down” over the horizon in utter “tranquility” as the sky hangs gently over the ocean. The speaker compares this "holy time" of day (a reference to evening vespers/prayers) to "a Nun / Breathless with adoration." In other words, it’s so quiet, it’s as though the world itself is holding its breath out of respect for nature’s beauty, just a nun is made breathless by her love for God.
The speaker’s descriptions of nature are, in fact, filled with religious imagery that links the beauty of the evening, and of nature more generally, to God (and thus presents this beauty as worthy of reverence). For example, the speaker calls the sky above the ocean the “gentleness of heaven," suggesting that it's the place where God calmly watches over the world. The thunderous sound of the ocean, meanwhile, is the "eternal motion" of "the mighty Being." That is, God is the one making the waves move and is also the powerful "mover" and shaker behind all things. Overall, the speaker’s language portrays the natural world as a divine creation capable of admiring its own handiwork.
Struck by this spectacle, the speaker encourages greater awareness of, and appreciation for, both nature and the divine spirit behind it. The speaker suddenly tells a companion to "Listen!"—a command that turns out to be addressed to the speaker's daughter, but initially seems to be addressed to the reader. On one level, it directs the daughter's (and reader's) attention to the "thunder"-like sound of the sea. On another, it urges the reader to appreciate natural beauty as an expression of God’s power—to pay attention to the work of "the mighty Being."
The speaker also emphasizes the "divine" element present in the girl's own "nature." This language implies that human beings are themselves a part of nature and thus part of the divine. As such, the poem implies that people should tune in more closely to both.
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Childhood and Faith
Toward the end of "It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free," the speaker addresses a "Dear child" (representing Wordsworth’s young daughter). When she doesn’t seem especially awestruck by the evening’s beauty, the speaker reasons that this is because, for children, feeling close to God is an everyday occurrence. That is, kids maintain a natural sense of faith and wonder at all times, so they don’t necessarily react with solemn awe to what adults would consider sacred moments. At the same time, the speaker believes that children feel God's presence in moments that might not seem especially sacred to adults. Implicitly, then, the speaker's awe during this beautiful sunset is a rediscovery of what children feel all the time.
The speaker notes that the young girl doesn't seem to appreciate this "holy" evening as much as the speaker does, but insists that this is only a deceptive outward appearance. To the speaker, the fact that she seems "untouched by solemn thought" during this sunset doesn't mean her "nature" is any "less divine" than the speaker’s own. That is, her outward lack of reverence doesn't mean she's any less pious or capable of reverence.
In fact, the speaker claims, children are the most holy and reverent of God's creatures and have a kind of access to a divinity that adults have lost. The speaker believes that this child (along with children in general) lies in "Abraham's bosom all the year": that is, she's perpetually in God's presence. (Abraham is a central patriarch and prophet in the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths; the "bosom of Abraham" usually means a place of comfort in the afterlife, but here it suggests the comforting presence of God in one's regular life.) Her childlike faith and wonder are a constant. Moreover, she has special, direct access to God and the sacred, and experiences God's presence "when we [adults] know it not."
Thus, the reverence that the speaker feels (and wants to share with the reader) during the "beauteous evening" represents a kind of tuning back into the wavelength that kids are always on. The girl may not seem especially full of faith and wonder now, but that's only because she's full of faith and wonder all the time—including in moments when it's much harder for adults to feel these things.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free”
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Lines 1-4
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 tranquility;Lines 1-4 describe the poem's setting: a calm, beautiful evening, complete with a lovely sunset. (As lines 5-8 will reveal, the speaker is observing this sunset on the coast and might be walking along a beach.) The description emphasizes the speaker's feelings of peace and reverence:
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 tranquility;"Beauteous" is a synonym for "beautiful"—a grand, old-fashioned word that captures some of the grandeur of the scene itself. "The holy time," meanwhile, refers to the time of evening worship in some Christian denominations (i.e., around sunset).
A simile in lines 2-3 then compares the "quiet" of this hour to "a Nun / Breathless with adoration." In other words, the atmosphere is so windless and peaceful, it's like a religious woman whose worshipful love has taken her breath away.
This personification of the "holy time" can be read as a projection of the speaker's own feelings; after all, it's the speaker who's entranced by the beauty of the evening. The setting sun looks "broad" and "tranquil[]" as it "sink[s]" in the sky, again reflecting the calm, expansive mood of the speaker.
These are the first four lines of a sonnet, and they follow the ABBA rhyme pattern of an Italian/Petrarchan sonnet (whose first eight lines conventionally rhyme ABBAABBA; note that the next four lines will depart from this scheme slightly).
Like all traditional sonnets, this one has 14 lines and is written in iambic pentameter (meaning each line has five iambs, poetic feet with an unstressed-stressed syllable pattern). Its rhythmic variations on this meter often have an expressive effect: for example, iambic lines start with an unstressed syllable, but line 3 actualy begins with a stressed syllable: "Breathless." Combined with the enjambment over the line break ("a Nun / Breathless with adoration"), this effect places extra emphasis on "Breathless," making the word sound like an impassioned release of emotion.
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Lines 5-8
The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea;
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder—everlastingly. -
Lines 9-11
Dear child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine: -
Lines 12-14
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year;
And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.
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“It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Personification
The poem uses personification to make its "beauteous evening" more vivid to the reader. This device first appears as part of the simile in lines 2-3:
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration;The speaker imagines the sunset hour—a.k.a. "the holy time," the time of evening prayer services in some Christian traditions—as a nun whose sheer love of God/creation has taken her breath away. In other words, this peaceful hour of the day seems to maintain a reverent hush. Of course, this personification is a projection of the speaker's own feelings onto the surrounding scene. It's the speaker who feels a reverent "adoration" for this "beauteous evening"—hence the poem!
Line 5 also uses a kind of personification:
The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea;
One meaning of "heaven" here is "sky," so the speaker is imagining the peaceful sky as a gentle spirit watching ("brood[ing]") over the ocean. At the same time, the line invokes the Christian "heaven"—the home of God—so it also implies, more specifically, that God is watching over the waters. (This line sets up the description in lines 6-8, which further implies that God's "eternal motion" produces the thundering sound of the waves.)
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Simile
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Alliteration
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Assonance
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Allusion
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Enjambment
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Caesura
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"It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Beauteous
- Holy time
- Adoration
- Tranquility
- Broods o'er
- O'er
- The mighty Being
- Doth
- Everlastingly
- Walkest
- Thou
- Thy
- Therefore
- Liest
- Abraham's bosom
- Worshipp'st
- The Temple
- Thee
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Beautiful.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free”
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Form
"It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free" is a sonnet—one of a sequence of 20 "Miscellaneous Sonnets" in Wordsworth's Poems, in Two Volumes (1807).
Wordsworth's poem is a typical sonnet in many ways:
- It has 14 lines and is written in iambic pentameter (i.e., its lines generally follow a da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM rhythm).
- Those lines can also be grouped into two parts: the octave (first eight lines) and the sestet (last six lines).
- A thematic shift—called the turn or volta—marks the transition between these two parts of the poem. The rhyme pattern shifts in line 9 as well.
Again, these are all conventional features of the sonnet. However, the rhyme scheme here is a bit unconventional: it's close to, but doesn't quite follow, the Italian sonnet form:
- The first eight lines of an Italian sonnet rhyme ABBA ABBA, while the last six lines typically rhyme CDE CDE or CDC DCD (though variations are allowed).
- But in Wordsworth's sonnet, the first eight lines rhyme ABBA ACCA, while the last six lines use an unusual DEF DFE variation.
In other words, the poet is following a formal tradition but putting his own spin on it. This is a fitting choice for a poem that's traditionally pious in some ways but would have been considered, at the time, unorthodox in its expression of religious sentiment. (For example, the poem's claim that children have a special connection with God is more characteristic of Wordsworth's private beliefs than the standard Christian doctrine of his era.)
The sonnet form is also associated with love, so Wordsworth may have seen it as a fitting choice for a poem about love of God and nature.
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Meter
The poem is written in iambic pentameter, meaning that its lines generally contain five iambs (metrical feet, or units, that consist of an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable). That is, its lines typically consist of 10 syllables that follow a da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM rhythm.
However, like most metrical poems, this one contains some variations in the pattern. Look at the first two lines, for example:
It is | a beau- | teous eve- | ning, calm | and free,
The ho- | ly time | is qui- | et as | a Nun [...]The first foot of line 1 sounds most natural when read as a trochee (stressed-unstressed) rather than an iamb (again, unstressed-stressed), though it can be read either way. The rest of these two lines flow according to the standard pattern; notice, though, that for metrical purposes (and in Wordsworth's English accent!), "beauteous" is two syllables (BEAU-teous) rather than three (BEAU-te-ous).
Then comes line 3, which contains some clear variations on the iambic pattern:
Breathless | with ad- | ora- | tion; the | broad sun
That first stressed syllable ("Breathless") sounds like an emphatic rush of "adoration," while the weird rhythms of the line make the language itself sound like it's gasping for "Breath[]." The line then ends with a spondee (stressed-stressed), emphasizing the huge, slowly sinking "sun" that commands the speaker's attention.
Line 4 then goes back to the poem's regular iambic rhythm, while line 5 contains further metrical quirks—and so on. The poem follows its meter pretty closely for the most part but varies it to keep things interesting for the reader.
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Rhyme Scheme
The rhyme scheme of Wordsworth's poem is somewhat unusual for a sonnet. It runs like this:
ABBAACCADEFDFE
This pattern is close but not identical to the rhyme scheme of the Italian sonnet. The octave (first eight lines) of an Italian sonnet traditionally rhymes ABBA ABBA, not ABBA ACCA. The rhyme pattern in the sestet (last six lines) is typically CDE CDE or CDC DCD, though this part allows for more flexibility.
The poet has thus built a little freedom into a normally strict pattern—a fitting choice for a poem about a "calm and free" evening. The relaxed formal rules mirror the speaker's sense of relaxation. The poem's form also strikes a balance between convention and innovation—much as its content balances traditional Christian themes with a very Wordsworthian emphasis on childhood and nature.
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“It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free” Speaker
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The speaker is walking beside (or near) the ocean at sunset. Though never identified by name, gender, occupation, etc., the speaker is usually assumed to be Wordsworth himself, since Wordsworth rarely used personas except in poems clearly framed as dramatic monologues. In fact, much of Wordsworth's writing is considered a landmark in the history of autobiographical poetry.
The speaker is accompanied by a little girl, addressed as "Dear child!" and "dear Girl!" This girl is usually identified as Wordsworth's daughter Caroline, whom he visited in Calais, France in 1802. In fact, this poem is part of a larger group of sonnets from 1802-1803, some of which mention Calais.
The poem itself never specifically identifies the girl as the speaker's daughter, however, perhaps because the poet hoped to protect his privacy. (Wordsworth fathered Caroline out of wedlock with a Frenchwoman named Annette Vallon and, due to wartime tensions between England and France, was only able to visit her once during her childhood. These details weren't known to the public during Wordsworth's lifetime.)
The speaker feels reverence for the "beauteous" natural scene the poem describes as well as affection and admiration for the "dear Girl." In fact, as lines 10-14 make clear, the speaker sees this child (and perhaps children in general) as more in tune with God and nature than the speaker is.
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“It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free” Setting
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The poem takes place beside (or near) the "Sea" on a beautiful "evening." The speaker remarks on the loveliness of this setting, pointing out its seemingly "Breathless" hush, tranquil "sun[set]," and gentle sky over ocean waters. The speaker also urges an accompanying "Girl" (and/or the reader) to "Listen" to a "sound like thunder"—probably the crashing of the ocean waves, which the speaker attributes to the "eternal motion" of God.
The setting is, in fact, the inspiration for the whole poem. The scenic atmosphere stirs the speaker's reverence toward God and nature, and it also prompts the speaker's reflections about the "Girl" coming along for this evening stroll.
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Literary and Historical Context of “It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free”
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Literary Context
William Wordsworth (1770-1850) wrote “It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free” in 1802 and published it in 1807, in a collection called Poems, in Two Volumes. This book contains some of Wordsworth's best-known poems, including “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” whose speaker partakes in a classic Wordsworthian activity: reflecting on a tranquil moment in nature. “It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free" (untitled, but usually referred to by its first line) is part of the book's sequence of 20 "Miscellaneous Sonnets." It, too, finds inspiration in a scene of "tranquility."
Wordsworth was a leader among England’s Romantic poets, solidifying a tradition launched by William Blake in the late 18th century and further developed by poets like Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats in the 19th century. The British Romantics wrote sensuously vivid yet philosophical poems that often pondered the relationship between humanity and nature, childhood and adulthood, and imagination and reality.
This particular sonnet expresses Wordsworth's characteristic reverence for natural beauty while also hinting at his belief that children have a special relationship to faith. This belief has ancient roots in Christianity and other traditions; the Bible, for example, says that "strength" and "praise" come "from the mouths of babes." However, Wordsworth's poetry elaborates on this idea at length, including in his famous "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood," which claims that "Heaven lies about us in our infancy!"
Historical Context
Wordsworth wrote "It Is a Beauteous Evening" not long after the end of the French Revolution, which he witnessed while living in France from 1791-1793. During those years, he met and fell in love with Annette Vallon, and in 1792, she gave birth to their daughter Caroline. Soon afterward, wartime upheaval and money problems forced Wordsworth to return to England. In 1802, during a break in political tensions between England and France, he journeyed to Calais, France to visit Caroline (whom he had never met) and inform Annette of his plans to marry another woman.
In "Beauteous Evening," the speaker (a stand-in for the poet) describes walking on the shore with a "dear Girl" at sunset. The poem implies that the child is his, but leaves some ambiguity on this point. In 18th and 19th-century England, having a child out of wedlock was considered scandalous, so Wordsworth concealed this element of his personal history from the public. Nevertheless, the journals of his sister Dorothy (who was also a writer, and who accompanied him to Calais) suggest that he based the poem on his real-life seaside walks with Caroline. As one entry notes: "We walked by the sea-shore almost every Evening with Annette & Caroline or [William] & I alone."
Wordsworth wrote other notable poems during the Calais trip, too. For example, according to Dorothy, he conceived the sonnet “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802” on the morning they headed back to England.
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More “It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free” Resources
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External Resources
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Wordsworth's Life and Work — Read a biography of the poet at the Poetry Foundation.
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More on the Romantics — Check out the Poetry Foundation's "Introduction to British Romanticism," the movement with which Wordsworth is closely associated.
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Poems, in Two Volumes (Vol. I) — Read the poem in its original context: the 1807 volume in which it was first published.
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The Romantics and Nature — Watch a BBC documentary on the British Romantics (including Wordsworth) and their relationship to the natural world.
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The Poem Aloud — Watch British actor Benedict Cumberbatch read "It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free."
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LitCharts on Other Poems by William Wordsworth
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