The City as Art

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Wesminster_Hall_and_Bridge_edited.jpg

Westminster Hall and Bridge: Augustus Pugin & Thomas Rowlandson (1810).

Earth hath 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 splendor, 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: Poems, in Two Volumes: Sonnet 14