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, (5)
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.
These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din (25)
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 (30)
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or 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, (35)
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, (40)
Is lightened:-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 (45)
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- (50)
In darkness and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight; 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, (55)
O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!
And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity, (60)
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, (65)
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 (70)
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 (75)
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
The colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love, (80)
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, nor 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 (85)
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts
Have followed; for such loss. I would believe,
Abundant recompense. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth. but hearing oftentimes (90)
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh not 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 (95)
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 (100)
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the wood,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world (105)
Of eye, and ear,-both, what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature ad the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul (110)
Of all my 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, (115)
My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart and read
The former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eye. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once, (120)
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 (125)
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 (130)
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk; (135)
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 fo (140)
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 (145)
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 stre (150)
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 forg (155)
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!
Wordsworth, William. “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th ed. Vol. D: The Romantic Period. Eds. Stephen Greenblatt, M. H. Abrams, Jack Stillinger, Deidre Shauna Lynch. New York: Norton, 2006. 258-62. Print.
"Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802"
Earth has not any thing to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, (5)
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; (10)
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
Wordsworth, William. “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th ed. Vol. D: The Romantic Period. Eds. Stephen Greenblatt, M. H. Abrams, Jack Stillinger, Deidre Shauna Lynch. New York: Norton, 2006. 317. Print.
"London, 1802"
Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower (5)
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart:
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: (10)
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
Wordsworth, William. “London, 1802.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th ed. Vol. D: The Romantic Period. Eds. Stephen Greenblatt, M. H. Abrams, Jack Stillinger, Deidre Shauna Lynch. New York: Norton, 2006. 319. Print.
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