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The Restorative Power of Recollection

The speaker’s central preoccupation in “Tintern Abbey” relates to the power of memory to resurrect and recuperate what has otherwise been lost to time. The speaker indicates as much in the second verse paragraph, where he reflects at length on what his memories of the Wye Valley have meant to him in the time since his first visit (lines 22–30):

                                                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

In this passage, the speaker reflects on how, during the time he’s spent in “towns and cities,” the memories of his experience in the natural world have been a soothing balm. Working against the “weariness” of urban life, his recollections have called to mind “sensations sweet.” Importantly, though, these sensations aren’t about nostalgia. Instead, they are fully embodied, “felt in the blood” and “along the heart.” The speaker asserts that the power of memory to resurrect and recuperate previous sensations and emotions leads to a refinement of spirit that he describes as “my purer mind.” The result of the entire experience is one of “tranquil restoration.” The speaker pursues this tranquil restoration throughout the rest of the poem.

The Bittersweetness of Passing Time

Despite the speaker’s emphasis on the restorative power of recollection, it’s clear that acts of memory can never fully recuperate the past. As such, alongside every act of recollection there comes a simultaneous recognition of some “remainder” that can’t be recovered. Awareness of this remainder evokes bittersweet feelings about the passing of time, which then infuse the present moment. Thus, even as memory enables a sense of “tranquil restoration” (line 30), it also conjures an accompanying feeling of sadness. The speaker references this complex emotional mixture in phrases like “sad perplexity” (line 60) and “aching joys” (80). But regardless of the awareness of what has been lost to time, the speaker remains optimistic about the “abundant recompense” (line 88) that memory provides. As he puts it in lines 62–65:

     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.

Despite the melancholy feelings that come with recollection, the speaker chooses to emphasize “present pleasure” as well as the thought that such pleasure will create memories that feed him in the future. But however earnest the speaker’s optimism may be, it’s clear that this optimism always exists in relationship to the bittersweetness of time’s irreversible passage.

The Enduring Consolation of Nature

Aside from the speaker’s sister, whom he addresses affectionately in the final verse paragraph, it is the natural world that has provided him with the most enduring form of consolation. He indicates as much in the short third verse paragraph, where he reflects on the solace he’s derived from his memories of the Wye Valley in the five years since his last visit (lines 49–57):

                                                        If this
     Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft—
     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,
     O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods,
              How often has my spirit turned to thee!

In times of “darkness” and “joyless daylight,” the speaker has always been able to turn his thoughts to nature and feel better. He attributes this fact, in part, to the longstanding relationship he has cultivated with the outdoors throughout his life. He offers a detailed sketch of his shifting relationship in the long fourth verse paragraph. When he was a boy, his relationship to nature was purely physical, and in adolescence it was characterized by dizzying emotions. Now that he’s reached maturity, however, he perceives an underlying spiritual presence in the landscape. It is to this presence that he offers a “prayer” (line 121) in the final verse paragraph, where he also declares: “Nature never did betray / The heart that loved her” (122–23).

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