It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free

The poem is in the form of a Petrarchan sonnet, which is divided into an octave (eight lines) followed by a sestet (six lines). The meter is iambic pentameter. An iamb is a poetic foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, and a pentameter comprises five feet. There are a few variations, mostly involving a substitution of a trochaic foot for an iamb in the first foot of the line. A trochaic foot is the reverse of an iamb, consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one. Thus Line 3 (“Breathless”), Line 6 (“Listen!”) and Line 14 (“God being”) all begin with a trochaic foot. 

The Petrarchan sonnet also features a volta, or a turn in the thought at the beginning of the sestet. The sestet may present a different approach to the problem or situation that has been described in the octave. The turn is very clear in Wordsworth’s sonnet. Line 8, the last in the octave, ends with a period, the only line other than the final one to do so. The octave has described the peaceful scene in nature, and the sestet consists of a direct address to a child.