“Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798”— commonly known as “Tintern Abbey”— is a poem written by the British Romantic poet William Wordsworth. Wordsworth had first visited the Wye Valley when he was 23 years old, in 1793. His return five years later occasioned this poem, which Wordsworth saw as articulating his beliefs about nature, creativity, and the human soul. “Tintern Abbey” was included as the final poem in Lyrical Ballads, 1798.
The title is very significant. The poem's title reveals that it has a very specific setting: The Wye Valley, on the Welsh side of the River Wye. We discover that the poet has been here before; he is now ‘revisiting’ the Wye valley. The title also lets the reader know the context that has led to the poem: a walking tour that Wordsworth took with his sister, Dorothy Wordsworth, in the area. The title even establishes the exact date the poem was written (July 13, 1798). The title thus grounds the poem in real experience, almost as though it were a diary entry of the speaker.
Stanza 1
Five years have past........... the quiet of the sky.
The speaker says that five years have passed since he visited the Wye River valley last. Five summers and five winters which felt especially very long. Now he is back, and once again he hears the gentle murmuring of springs running down from the mountains. Once again, he sees the sheer tall cliffs on an uninhibited quiet landscape which invokes a feeling of serenity in his heart. It puts him in a thoughtful reflective mood. The cliffs link the quiet landscape to the quietness of the sky.
The day is come ........... Hermit sits alone.
The day has come when he can again sit under this shady sycamore tree, from there he can look at the surrounding farmland in the valley- the gardens surrounding the cottage and many clumps of trees within the orchard. At this season, the fruits on the trees are unripe, the whole orchards are clad in green colour, blending in with the surrounding woods and thickets. Once again, he sees the line of tiny hedge-rows that are almost indistinguishable from the wild bushes and picturesque rural farms, completely green. He sees circles of smoke going up silently, from among the trees. He imagines that this smoke might be coming from the wandering people living in the woods, or from the fire of a Hermit living alone in a cave.
Stanza 2
These beauteous ......... into the life of things.
These beautiful sights have not been to him as a landscape to a blind man. A blind man cannot carry the memory of the beauty of a landscape. He didn’t forget these beautiful sights, and could still picture them vividly. But often he owed to them while he was surrounded by the noise of towns and cities. In the hours of weariness and anxiety, the thoughts of nature brought to him sweet sensations in his blood and his heart. They even entered his pure mind with calmness. The remembrance of this scenery affected even his actions, pushing him to do small unremembered acts of kindness, love and care for others. He is the result of his overall experience. He is thankful to these memories for granting him a sublime gift – these sweet memories reduced the weary weight of this unintelligible world. All his burden of life lightened while thinking about those beautiful scenes. Nature brought solace to his troubled mind. In that serene and blessed mood, the poet could go beyond the restrictions of his physical body. His body reaches a state of complete rest and his mind attains the ultimate state of tranquillity. He experiences inner-most harmony and joy. In that tranquil state of mind, he gets insight into life, he sees into the life of things.
Stanza 3
If this
..................... my spirit turned to thee!
This whole theory he presented in the second stanza- ‘We can see into the life of things’ - may be a vain or fake belief. Even if it is a fake belief - when unhappiness and the stress of everyday life have weighed heavily upon his heart, when everything seemed dark and "joyless" even in the "daylight" and when the "fretful stir," or irritable commotions of the world was getting him down - how often he turns to the wooded Wye. Addressing the river directly as ‘Sylvan Wye’ - wanderer through the woods- he asks the river how often his spirit turned to it for solace and comfort.
Stanza 4
And now, with gleams .......... from the eye
Now, the poet's dim and faint memories of his first visit are being revived by seeing everything again. He's experiencing "somewhat of a sad perplexity" confusion about how his present impressions match up with his "dim and faint" recollections. He is happy for two reasons- for the spectacular sights he sees at this moment, and for his hope that there is life and food for future years when he looks back with pleasure to these memories he makes now. The reflects on how much he's changed since his first visit (five years before). Then he was like a young deer and went wherever nature led him, bounding over the hills, river banks and lonely streams alike. He seemed to be running away from something, rather than chasing something "he loved". In those days nature was everything to him. Now that less-refined pleasures and ‘‘glad animal movements’’ and ecstasy of his boyish days are over. He says that he cannot describe his past self in words. The sound of a waterfall haunted him like a passion. He enjoyed the forms and colours of the tall rocks, mountains, deep and dark forest with an appetite- like a hungry man. Nature supplied his "feeling" and "love," too – and without the need for intellectual "thought," since nature had enough "charm" and "interest" on its own.
—That time is past,
.............. rolls through all things.
That time is gone. He can no longer experience the same "aching joys" and "dizzy raptures" (Utmost ecstasy) that a boy could experience. He is not disappointed by the loss of those aching joys and dizzy raptures because he is compensated with other gifts. He has learned to look on nature, not as when he was a thoughtless youth, and he can hear the still, sad music of humanity. It is neither harsh nor unpleasant. But it has enough power to make him feel humbled and soothe his spirit. It has a soothing and maturing effect helping him grow out of his youthful intensity and innocence. The poet has felt the presence of some divine force, that disturbs him with the joy of some noble thoughts. It is a divine presence that blends itself with everything around it, it lives in "the light of setting suns", in "the round ocean and the living air", in "the blue sky", and even "in the mind of man". It exists in everything in nature, surrounding us, filling us, and binding the universe together. It's "a motion and a spirit," that urges or animates, all things that think, and that "rolls through all things". This presence is all-pervasive.
Therefore am I still
............. all my moral being.
Since he acquired this new insight, he is still a lover of all that he perceives from this green earth through his eyes and ears- meadows, woods, mountains, etc. The speaker suggests that our "eyes and ears" somehow "half create" the things that we see and hear. He is happy to see the "presence" of some divine force in nature and his sense perceptions. He calls it "the anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse/ The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul/ Of all my moral being". The speaker seems to find it difficult to describe the "presence" he feels in nature. He calls nature a spiritual presence who nurtures, leads, and protects every part of him, including his heart, soul and morality.
Stanza 5
Nor perchance,
....................................................................
Is full of blessings.
The poet says that if he hadn’t learned all of this, he shouldn’t suffer his genial spirits to decay, he wouldn’t allow his natural sympathy and kindness to go to waste. It's because his sister Dorothy is with him on the banks of the River Wye. He calls her his "dearest Friend", his "dear, dear Friend", and his "dear, dear Sister". Her voice reminds him of the way he used to feel and her wild eyes remind him of his former pleasures. He wants to see in her what he was once when he visited the landscape five years ago. Knowing that Nature never betrayed any heart that loved her, he offers a prayer for his sister. He is confident that nature will answer his prayers because he is a nature-lover. It is nature’s privilege to lead human beings from joy to joy, filling their minds with lofty thoughts and keeping their minds full of serene beauty. So that people can withstand all the difficulties and immoralities of daily life including harsh and cruel words, unfair judgements, the selfishness of other people, greetings without kindness and other fake interactions. None of these bad things will ever take away our cheerful faith that everything we see is full of blessings.
Therefore let the moon
......................... and for thy sake!
He prays that nature would always stay with his sister, she may experience the beauty of moonlight when she is alone, and feel the presence of soft misty winds that blows from the mountain. After many years, when she becomes older these wild ecstasies will be matured to a serious and calm outlook and her mind will be a mansion for all these beauteous forms and her memory will be a dwelling place for all these sweet sounds and harmonies of nature. Then, if solitude, fear, pain or grief should affect you she will be able to look back to these days and remember him and his exhortations with tender joy. The speaker asks that at a future point he might have died and can no longer hear her voice and see her wild eyes, will she forget them standing together on the banks of this delightful stream. He, a worshiper of Nature for so long came there tirelessly, with a passion of deeper and holier love for nature. She (Poet’s sister Dorothy) should never forget that the sights; steep woods, high cliffs and that green pastoral landscape, were dearer to Wordsworth for the beauty they possessed and for the sake of her.
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