It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free

“It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free,” sometimes known as “Evening on Calais Beach,” is a sonnet by English Romantic poet William Wordsworth. It was written in Calais, France, in August, 1802, and published under the heading “Miscellaneous Sonnets” in Volume 1 of Wordsworth’s collection, Poems, in Two Volumes, in 1807. 

In the sonnet, Wordsworth walks on the beach in the evening with his nine-year-old daughter, Caroline. Caroline’s mother was Annette Vallon, with whom Wordsworth had a love affair in 1792, during his visit to France at the time of the French Revolution. 

The sonnet is in the Petrarchan form and is one of hundreds of sonnets that Wordsworth wrote. It contains themes common to much of his work: the beauty and majesty of nature, perceived as being connected to an underlying, divine reality, and the innocent, divine nature of children, who are always connected to God. 

The edition of the poem used in this study guide is from The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 5th ed., Vol. 2, Norton, 1986, p. 219.  

Poet Biography

William Wordsworth was born in the small town of Cockermouth in Cumberland, England, on April 7, 1770. His mother died when he was eight, and he was sent to school in the Lake District, with which his fame as a poet has always been linked. As a boy, he took many long walks exploring the lakes and countryside and feeling a deep connection to nature. Wordsworth’s father, John Wordsworth, died when Wordsworth was 13. The family had sufficient financial resources, however, to allow Wordsworth to attend St. John’s College at Cambridge University, in 1787. He did not enjoy his studies or university life generally, but nonetheless he graduated in 1791. He visited France twice, in 1790 and then for a year from 1791 to 1792, during which time he embraced the cause of the French Revolution. He also met Annette Vallon, a Frenchwoman with whom he had a child, Caroline—the girl depicted in “It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free.”

Around that time, Wordsworth began to maintain a close relationship with his sister, Dorothy, a bond that they maintained throughout their lives. In 1795, Wordsworth met Samuel Taylor Coleridge and they became close friends. They collaborated on the publication of Lyrical Ballads in 1798, which marked the beginning of the Romantic period in English poetry. A second edition, including Wordsworth’s “Preface,” in which he explained his poetic principles, appeared in 1800. 

This was a prolific period for Wordsworth, during which he produced much of his best work. In 1804, he completed the “Ode: Intimations of Immortality”; in 1805, he wrote an early version of The Prelude, a long, autobiographical poem. His Poems in Two Volumes, including “It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free,” appeared in 1807. Michael: A Pastoral Poem (1800) and The Ruined Cottage (1799 or 1800, later appearing in an expanded version in The Excursion in 1814), are two other notable works from this period.  

In 1802, Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinson, and they had five children. Wordsworth’s brother John drowned in a shipwreck in 1805, a tragedy that profoundly affected Wordsworth and resulted in “Elegiac Stanzas” in 1807. Two of his children died in 1812, and Wordsworth also became estranged from his longtime friend Coleridge, although late in life they patched up their quarrel to some extent. 

The first collected edition of Wordsworth’s poems appeared in 1815. His reputation as a poet of national stature was now assured. In middle and later life, however, the quality of Wordsworth’s poetry declined. He also became a political and religious conservative, rejecting his earlier radicalism. In 1813, he accepted a government position as a Stamp Distributor (a collector of revenues). Wordsworth was appointed Poet Laureate in 1843. 

Wordsworth died on April 23, 1850, at age 80, at Rydal Mount, near Ambleside in the Lake District. His final version of the poem that he had been continuously revising, The Prelude, was published posthumously that year. It is considered to be his masterpiece. 

Poem Text

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;

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.

Dear child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,

If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,

Thy nature is not therefore less divine:

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.

Wordsworth, William. “It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free.” 1807. Poetry Foundation. 

Summary

The first eight lines of the sonnet describe the beauty and calm of the natural scene on a particular evening. Everything is quiet. The sun is on its downward path in the sky. The sky is like a gentle heaven that overlooks the sea. The speaker sees and hears in this tranquil natural scene the presence of a spiritual force, which upholds the universe in perpetual motion. The final six lines introduce a second human presence to the scene. This is a young girl who is walking on the beach with the speaker of the poem. The child is spontaneously enjoying herself, without thinking about it. In the final four lines, the speaker states how close the child is to God at all times.