William Wordsworth
"Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey,
On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour, 13 July 1798"
(Lyrical Ballads, 1798)
| 1 | Five years have passed; five summers, with the length |
| 2 | Of five long winters! And again I hear |
| 3 | These waters, rolling from their mountain springs |
| 4 | With a sweet inland murmur. Once again |
| 5 | Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, |
| 6 | Which on a wild secluded scene impress |
| 7 | Thoughts of more deep seclusion, and connect |
| 8 | The landscape with the quiet of the sky. |
| 9 | The day is come when I again repose |
| 10 | Here, under this dark sycamore, and view |
| 11 | These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, |
| 12 | Which, at this season, with their unripe fruits, |
| 13 | Among the woods and copses lose themselves, |
| 14 | Nor, with their green and simple hue, disturb |
| 15 | The wild green landscape. Once again I see |
| 16 | These hedgerows -- hardly hedgerows, little lines |
| 17 | Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms |
| 18 | Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke |
| 19 | Sent up in silence from among the trees, |
| 20 | With some uncertain notice, as might seem, |
| 21 | Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, |
| 22 | Or of some hermit's cave, where by his fire |
| 23 | The hermit sits alone. |
| Though absent long, | |
| 24 | These forms of beauty have not been to me |
| 25 | As is a landscape to a blind man's eye; |
| 26 | But oft, in lonely rooms, and mid the din |
| 27 | Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, |
| 28 | In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, |
| 29 | Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart, |
| 30 | And passing even into my purer mind |
| 31 | With tranquil restoration; feelings too |
| 32 | Of unremembered pleasure -- such, perhaps, |
| 33 | As may have had no trivial influence |
| 34 | On that best portion of a good man's life, |
| 35 | His little, nameless, unremembered acts |
| 36 | Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, |
| 37 | To them I may have owed another gift, |
| 38 | Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood |
| 39 | In which the burden of the mystery, |
| 40 | In which the heavy and the weary weight |
| 41 | Of all this unintelligible world |
| 42 | Is lightened -- that serene and blessed mood |
| 43 | In which the affections gently lead us on |
| 44 | Until the breath of this corporeal frame |
| 45 | And even the motion of our human blood |
| 46 | Almost suspended, we are laid asleep |
| 47 | In body, and become a living soul; |
| 48 | While with an eye made quiet by the power |
| 49 | Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, |
| 50 | We see into the life of things. |
| If this | |
| 51 | Be but a vain belief -- yet oh, how oft |
| 52 | In darkness, and amid the many shapes |
| 53 | Of joyless daylight, when the fretful stir |
| 54 | Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, |
| 55 | Have hung upon the beatings of my heart, |
| 56 | How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee |
| 57 | Oh sylvan Wye! Thou wanderer through the woods, |
| 58 | How often has my spirit turned to thee! |
| 59 | And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, |
| 60 | With many recognitions dim and faint |
| 61 | And somewhat of a sad perplexity, |
| 62 | The picture of the mind revives again; |
| 63 | While here I stand, not only with the sense |
| 64 | Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts |
| 65 | That in this moment there is life and food |
| 66 | For future years. And so I dare to hope, |
| 67 | Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first |
| 68 | I came among these hills, when like a roe |
| 69 | I bounded o'er the mountains by the sides |
| 70 | Of the deep rivers and the lonely streams |
| 71 | Wherever nature led, more like a man |
| 72 | Flying from something that he dreads than one |
| 73 | Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then |
| 74 | (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days |
| 75 | And their glad animal movements all gone by) |
| 76 | To me was all in all. |
| I cannot paint | |
| 77 | What then I was. The sounding cataract |
| 78 | Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock, |
| 79 | The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, |
| 80 | Their colours and their forms, were then to me |
| 81 | An appetite, a feeling and a love |
| 82 | That had no need of a remoter charm |
| 83 | By thought supplied, or any interest |
| 84 | Unborrowed from the eye. That time is past, |
| 85 | And all its aching joys are now no more, |
| 86 | And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this |
| 87 | Faint I, nor mourn, nor murmur; other gifts |
| 88 | Have followed -- for such loss, I would believe, |
| 89 | Abundant recompense. For I have learned |
| 90 | To look on nature not as in the hour |
| 91 | Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes |
| 92 | The still sad music of humanity, |
| 93 | Not harsh nor grating, though of ample power |
| 94 | To chasten and subdue. And I have felt |
| 95 | A presence that disturbs me with the joy |
| 96 | Of elevated thoughts, a sense sublime |
| 97 | Of something far more deeply interfused, |
| 98 | Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, |
| 99 | And the round ocean, and the living air, |
| 100 | And the blue sky, and in the mind of man -- |
| 101 | A motion and a spirit that impels |
| 102 | All thinking things, all objects of all thought, |
| 103 | And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still |
| 104 | A lover of the meadows and the woods |
| 105 | And mountains, and of all that we behold |
| 106 | From this green earth, of all the mighty world |
| 107 | Of eye and ear (both what they half-create |
| 108 | And what perceive) -- well-pleased to recognize |
| 109 | In nature and the language of the sense, |
| 110 | The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, |
| 111 | The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul |
| 112 | Of all my moral being. |
| Nor, perchance, | |
| 113 | If I were not thus taught, should I the more |
| 114 | Suffer my genial spirits to decay; |
| 115 | For thou art with me, here, upon the banks |
| 116 | Of this fair river -- thou, my dearest friend, |
| 117 | My dear, dear friend, and in thy voice I catch |
| 118 | The language of my former heart, and read |
| 119 | My former pleasures in the shooting lights |
| 120 | Of thy wild eyes. Oh, yet a little while |
| 121 | May I behold in thee what I was once, |
| 122 | My dear, dear sister! And this prayer I make, |
| 123 | Knowing that nature never did betray |
| 124 | The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege, |
| 125 | Through all the years of this our life, to lead |
| 126 | From joy to joy, for she can so inform |
| 127 | The mind that is within us, so impress |
| 128 | With quietness and beauty, and so feed |
| 129 | With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, |
| 130 | Rash judgements, nor the sneers of selfish men, |
| 131 | Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all |
| 132 | The dreary intercourse of daily life, |
| 133 | Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb |
| 134 | Our cheerful faith that all which we behold |
| 135 | Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon |
| 136 | Shine on thee in thy solitary walk, |
| 137 | And let the misty mountain-winds be free |
| 138 | To blow against thee. And in after-years, |
| 139 | When these wild ecstasies shall be matured |
| 140 | Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind |
| 141 | Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, |
| 142 | Thy memory be as a dwelling-place |
| 143 | For all sweet sounds and harmonies -- oh then |
| 144 | If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief |
| 145 | Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts |
| 146 | Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, |
| 147 | And these my exhortations! Nor perchance, |
| 148 | If I should be where I no more can hear |
| 149 | Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams |
| 150 | Of past existence, wilt thou then forget |
| 151 | That on the banks of this delightful stream |
| 152 | We stood together; and that I, so long |
| 153 | A worshipper of nature, hither came |
| 154 | Unwearied in that service -- rather say |
| 155 | With warmer love, oh with far deeper zeal |
| 156 | Of holier love! Nor wilt thou then forget |
| 157 | That, after many wanderings, many years |
| 158 | Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs |
| 159 | And this green pastoral landscape, were to me |
| 160 | More dear, both for themselves, and for thy sake. |
Back to Wordsworth's Notable Works
Back to Wordsworth, main page.