Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798
By William Wordsworth
Five years have past; five summers,
with the length
Of five long winters! and again I
hear
These waters, rolling from their
mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.—Once
again
Do I behold these steep and lofty
cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene
impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and
connect
The landscape with the quiet of the
sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and
view
These plots of cottage-ground, these
orchard-tufts,
Which at this season, with their
unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose
themselves
'Mid groves and copses. Once again I
see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows,
little lines
Of sportive wood run wild: these
pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths
of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the
trees!
With some uncertain notice, as might
seem
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless
woods,
Or of some Hermit's cave, where by
his fire
The Hermit sits alone.
These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not
been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's
eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid
the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to
them,
In hours of weariness, sensations
sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along
the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind
With tranquil restoration:—feelings
too
Of unremembered pleasure: such,
perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial
influence
On that best portion of a good man's
life,
His little, nameless, unremembered,
acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I
trust,
To them I may have owed another
gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed
mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary
weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened:—that serene and
blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead
us on,—
Until, the breath of this corporeal
frame
And even the motion of our human
blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the
power
Of harmony, and the deep power of
joy,
We see into the life of things.
If this
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how
oft—
In darkness and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight; when the
fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the
world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my
heart—
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to
thee,
O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro'
the woods,
How
often has my spirit turned to thee!
And now, with
gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and
faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives
again:
While here I stand, not only with
the sense
Of present pleasure, but with
pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life
and food
For future years. And so I dare to
hope,
Though changed, no doubt, from what
I was when first
I came among these hills; when like
a roe
I bounded o'er the mountains, by the
sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely
streams,
Wherever nature led: more like a man
Flying from something that he
dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For
nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish
days
And their glad animal movements all
gone by)
To me was all in all.—I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding
cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall
rock,
The mountain, and the deep and
gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were
then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, not any
interest
Unborrowed from the eye.—That time
is past,
And all its aching joys are now no
more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for
this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other
gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I
would believe,
Abundant recompense. For I have
learned
To look on nature, not as in the
hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing
oftentimes
The still sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of
ample power
To chasten and subdue.—And I have
felt
A presence that disturbs me with the
joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense
sublime
Of something far more deeply
interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of
setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living
air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of
man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of
all thought,
And rolls through all things.
Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods
And mountains; and of all that we
behold
From this green earth; of all the
mighty world
Of eye, and ear,—both what they half
create,
And what perceive; well pleased to
recognise
In nature and the language of the
sense
The anchor of my purest thoughts,
the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart,
and soul
Of all my moral being.
Nor perchance,
If I were not thus taught, should I
the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me here upon the
banks
Of this fair river; thou my dearest
Friend,
My dear, dear Friend; and in thy
voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and
read
My former pleasures in the shooting
lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little
while
May I behold in thee what I was
once,
My dear, dear Sister! and this
prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her
privilege,
Through all the years of this our
life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so
inform
The mind that is within us, so
impress
With quietness and beauty, and so
feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither
evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of
selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is,
nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily
life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or
disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which
we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let
the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain-winds be
free
To blow against thee: and, in after
years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be
matured
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely
forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies;
oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or
grief,
Should be thy portion, with what
healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor,
perchance—
If I should be where I no more can
hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild
eyes these gleams
Of past existence—wilt thou then
forget
That on the banks of this delightful
stream
We stood together; and that I, so
long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came
Unwearied in that service: rather
say
With warmer love—oh! with far deeper
zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then
forget,
That after many wanderings, many
years
Of absence, these steep woods and
lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape,
were to me
More dear, both for themselves and
for thy sake!
