William Wordsworth’s ‘London, 1802’ is one of my favorite English Romantic sonnets. Composed in 1802, Wordsworth addresses the poet John Milton or, more specifically, apostrophizes him. I believe much of the lamenting of the decline of English culture and the woeful appeal to Milton is, to me, reminiscent of Ronald Reagan.
Although he’s best-known in contemporary literary circles as the poet who praises nature and pines to “wander lonely as a cloud,” ‘London, 1802’ shows a political Wordsworth who is very critical of England and its people to look back nostalgically to a happier time in English history.
Wordsworth lamented:
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;
O 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.
Wordsworth expresses the wish that Milton was still alive, believing his country, England, needs him now. But, unfortunately, his homeland had become stagnant and corrupt: the church (‘altar’) had become corrupt, its army and England’s military standing (‘sword’), its writers (‘pen’), and even the home (‘Fireside’).
As American politics and culture descend rapidly from it peak in the 1980’s, possibly toward civil war, The same prayer Wordsworth offered can easily be adapted to our current circumstances with a mere paraphrasing of this sonnet:
‘Washington, 2022’
Reagan! Thou shouldst be living at this hour:
America 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 God-given exceptionalism
and inward happiness. We are selfish men;
O 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.
Wordsworth exclaims, ‘Milton! Thou shouldst be living at this hour because John Milton helped his country through the difficult period of the English Civil War and showed that freedom, liberty, and opposition to tyranny are noble values worth defending.
Reagan similarly helped America end the cold war against tyrannical socialism (redundant?). Reagan also was a champion, like Milton, of freedom, liberty, and opposition to tyranny.
Like Wordsworth, I would call upon Reagan, wishing he was alive at this time to teach his country things like “manners, virtue, freedom, and grace in power.”
Like Wordsworth’s view of Milton, I believe Ronald Reagan was different even from his contemporaries in terms of the virtues mentioned, with the ability to embody “cheerful godliness” even while doing the “lowliest duties.”
The screaming and self-aggrandizement from President Trump’s mountain top to the Godless, socialist, scorched-earth autocrats carrying President Biden on their shoulders, the calming balm of a Ronald Reagan, or even the kinder, gentler George HW Bush would be really nice about now.
