The final poem in Lyrical Ballads is an ode titled simply "Lines" and subtitled "Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour, July 13, 1798." Because of the poem's loose structure, Wordsworth did not call it an ode but developed it as an extended lyric meditation on memory, guiding the reader through a series of emotional states.
BACKGROUND. Some biographical background helps clarify the poem. Wordsworth had first seen Tintern Abbey, an old ruin, in 1793. At the end of 1792 he had returned from France full of enthusiasm for the Revolution but grew dejected when England went to war against France. His friend William Culvert had asked Wordsworth to join him in a walking tour of southern England, but the two separated at Salisbury Plain. Near Stonehenge, Wordsworth experienced a mystical restoration of faith as he saw visions of the ancient Britons. In a new mood of confidence and hope for the French republic, Wordsworth walked on alone to the valley of the Wye River where for the first time he saw Tintern Abbey.
When Wordsworth began to write the poem, almost five years later, matters in France had deteriorated. In the meanwhile, he had read Godwin's Political Justice and written poems such as "TheCumberland Beggar" and "The Ruined Cottage" in sympathy with the poor. He had made a home with his sister Dorthy near Alfoxden and had started working with Coleridge. In June of 1798 William and his siter had just spent a week with Coleridge at Stowey, preparing poems for the printer. Then the Wordsworths took a "four-day ramble" to the Wye valley, where they viewed the abbey from the same vantage point "Wordsworth had enjoyed five years before. In the poem Wordsworth recalls the scene and his formerly enthusiastic state of mind. He feels the poem arise spontaneously as he and his sister leave the Wye and continue their tour..
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FORMS.
| 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 10 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, 20 Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire The Hermit sits alone. |
| In the first twenty-one lines, Wordsworth describes the scene as unchanged during the past five years. The poet emphasizes the lapse of time, saying, "again I hear," "again do I behold," and "again I see." The landscape is rich, green, and peaceful, suggesting the seclusion of a hermitage. |
Tintern Abbey #2
In line 22, the poet shifts his attention from the present scene to recapitulate his memories of it. These memories have comforted and consoled him in the intervening years spent in less beautiful, more urban settings; they have also generated moods of calm awareness that have mystically enlightened him. In such moods, he feels, another kind of perception comes to us, so that "we see into the life of things" (line 49). He had often returned in spirit to the Wye for escape from the busy and fretful world.
Tintern Abbey #3
In line 58, the poet begins a transition back to the present moment. He enjoys the pleasure of this time and also anticipates that he will enjoy it again in future memories.
But at line 66 he starts to recapitulate his life as a series of stages in the development of a relationship with nature. At first he roamed as freely as an animal, but as he grew he felt joy and rapture and passionate involvement with his own youth. Now he is involved with human concerns. He has become more thoughtful and sees nature in the light of those thoughts. He still loves nature, but in a more mature and more emotionally subdued way.
Tintern Abbey #4
In lines 106-107 Wordsworth suggests an important romantic conception: the mind not only receives sensations from the outside world, but it also half-creates, by its own operations of memory, imagination, and perception, the scene before the eyes. The "mighty world of eye and ear" is based on nature but is also shaped by the poet's mind.
Tintern Abbey #6
In the final section of the poem, from line 111 to the end, Wordsworth turns to his sister who stands beside him, enjoying the view. (Her presence has not been previously mentioned in the poem.) Addressing her as his "dearest Friend," he compares her simple, intense pleasure with his own at the earlier stage of his life. He parlays that she will benefit from the love of nature as he has done and find in it solace from the "dreary" scenes of adult life. He suggests that if they are separated in the future (perhaps by death?), she will find comfort in the memory of this moment of shared experience.
Although the manuscript for Lyrical Ballads had been already worked out in cooperation with Coleridge, Wordsworth added "Tintern Abbey" at the end. It was one of the outstanding poems in the collection.
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