In "Composed upon Westminster Bridge," what is the significance of the exclamation at the end of the poem?
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As the previous educator notes, "that mighty heart" is a metaphor for London, which normally "beats" with life and vigor. The exclamation at the end of the poem is the narrator's expression of wonder at the tranquility that settles on the city in "[t]he beauty of the morning."
All of the places in which there is usually human activity and bustle—"ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples"—"lie / Open to the fields, and to the sky" as though they, too, are reclining in repose. The only movement in the poem is that of the river, which "glideth at his own sweet will." The narrator, too, is still, for he has the good sense not to "pass by / A sight so touching in its majesty."
Wordsworth personifies the river ("he"), as he does the other inanimate objects...
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