Why did the poet write the poem of "London 1802"?

This poem is probably one of Wordsworth's only nationalistic poems. He seems frustrated with the way English society has fallen away from the noble virtues of just a few years ago.

He begins the poem with an exclammation and a dramatic outcry.

Milton! England has need of you.

Wordsworth feels that Milton exemplified all that was good about English society. Milton wrote Paradise Lost some time back and was considered a moral and virtuous poet. Milton's soul is as bright as a star, he stood alone above the crowd. etc.

Wordsworth was concerned with ethical morality and the natural sense of morality his poems might communicate to his readers. Wordsworth was not a sensualist as some might imagine. He sees England as a quagmire or swamp full of selfish men. We wishes Milton were here to teach "manners, virtue, freedom, power."