LINES WRITTEN A FEW MILES
ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY, ON REVISITING THE BANKS OF THE WYE DURING A
TOUR, July 13, 1798.
Five years have passed; five
summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and
again I hear
These waters, rolling from
their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur.
4—Once again
Do I behold these steep and
lofty cliffs,
Which 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,
Among the woods and copses
lose themselves,
Nor, with their green and
simple hue, disturb
The wild green landscape. 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
wreathes 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.
Though
absent long,
These forms of beauty 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 may have had no 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 lighten’d:—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 day-light; 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
through the woods,
How often has my spirit turned
to thee!
And now, with gleams of
half-extinguish’d 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, or 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 recompence. 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,
Not 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, 5
And what perceive; well
pleased to recognize
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 chearful 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.
-William Wordsworth
