"Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey" by: William Wordsworth

Authors Avatar

Quentan Tobolka                Brit. Lit. - Mr. Lund

"Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey"

                by: William Wordsworth

In Exploring Poetry of Gale Research states “"Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey" is a meditation upon memory, youth, nature, and human love.” “Tintern Abbey” is very much so of what Exploring Poetry states but also a very profound poem about nature which is composed by William Wordsworth. He uses many in depth physical images of his favorite spot in nature, or his ‘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 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. (Wordsworth lines 1-8)

Although this intro into his poem contains many vivid images which are incredible, he introduces many other deeper meanings. Wordsworth presentations of deeper meanings are shown through three stages: first, revisiting the memories of nature mentally, second, the when you return to nature and your past selves in nature, and finally, sharing your experiences of nature with someone else.

First, the speaker speaks very highly of revisiting his memories mentaly which nature has made available for him.

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

 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 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. (Wordsworth ln.23-35)

Here the speaker talks of his long absence of the physical presence of nature. He talks although how ‘oft’ or often when bored, ‘lonely rooms’, or in ‘towns and cities’ he remembers nature. He says he owes nature for these memories. He also talks of the ‘unremembered pleasure’ which are the memories ‘of kindness and of love’ only are experienced when he revisited in his memories of nature in his head. These remembrances of nature, which help him make it through boredom of the stresses of city life, show one of Wordsworth’s deeper elements of nature. Next, the speaker vividly shows what these recollections of nature do for you.

Join now!

--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: (lines 41-46)

Here the speaker talks of how the memories lead him on, until his next physical reaction with nature. The speaker implies the memories lead him on until ‘the breath of this corporeal frame…’ enter his blood. Corporeal in the instance means physical which signifies how nature’s memories keep him going until his next interaction with nature and ...

This is a preview of the whole essay