Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey

 

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 sweet inland murmur.—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 wood 	
How often has my spirit turned to thee!

	
And now, with gleams of half-extinguish'd though[t,] 	
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, 	
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 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 (1770-1850)

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