Summary
The full title of this poem is “Lines Composed a Few Miles
above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a
Tour. July 13, 1798.”
It opens with the speaker’s declaration that five years have passed
since he last visited this location, encountered its tranquil, rustic
scenery, and heard the murmuring waters of the river. He recites
the objects he sees again, and describes their effect upon him:
the “steep and lofty cliffs” impress upon him “thoughts of more
deep seclusion”; he leans against the dark sycamore tree and looks
at the cottage-grounds and the orchard trees, whose fruit is still
unripe. He sees the “wreaths of smoke” rising up from cottage chimneys
between the trees, and imagines that they might rise from “vagrant
dwellers in the houseless woods,” or from the cave of a hermit in
the deep forest.
The speaker then describes how his memory of these “beauteous
forms” has worked upon him in his absence from them: when he was
alone, or in crowded towns and cities, they provided him with “sensations sweet,
/ Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart.” The memory of the
woods and cottages offered “tranquil restoration” to his mind, and
even affected him when he was not aware of the memory, influencing
his deeds of kindness and love. He further credits the memory of
the scene with offering him access to that mental and spiritual
state in which the burden of the world is lightened, in which he
becomes a “living soul” with a view into “the life of things.” The
speaker then says that his belief that the memory of the woods has
affected him so strongly may be “vain”—but if it is, he has still
turned to the memory often in times of “fretful stir.”
Even in the present moment, the memory of his past experiences
in these surroundings floats over his present view of them, and
he feels bittersweet joy in reviving them. He thinks happily, too,
that his present experience will provide many happy memories for
future years. The speaker acknowledges that he is different now
from how he was in those long-ago times, when, as a boy, he “bounded
o’er the mountains” and through the streams. In those days, he says,
nature made up his whole world: waterfalls, mountains, and woods
gave shape to his passions, his appetites, and his love. That time
is now past, he says, but he does not mourn it, for though he cannot
resume his old relationship with nature, he has been amply compensated
by a new set of more mature gifts; for instance, he can now “look
on nature, not as in the hour / Of thoughtless youth; but hearing
oftentimes / The still, sad music of humanity.” And he can now sense
the presence of something far more subtle, powerful, and fundamental
in the light of the setting suns, the ocean, the air itself, and even
in the mind of man; this energy seems to him “a motion and a spirit
that impels / All thinking thoughts.... / And rolls through all
things.” For that reason, he says, he still loves nature, still
loves mountains and pastures and woods, for they anchor his purest
thoughts and guard the heart and soul of his “moral being.”
The speaker says that even if he did not feel this way
or understand these things, he would still be in good spirits on
this day, for he is in the company of his “dear, dear (d) Sister,”
who is also his “dear, dear Friend,” and in whose voice and manner
he observes his former self, and beholds “what I was once.” He offers
a prayer to nature that he might continue to do so for a little
while, knowing, as he says, that “Nature never did betray / The
heart that loved her,” but leads rather “from joy to joy.” Nature’s
power over the mind that seeks her out is such that it renders that
mind impervious to “evil tongues,” “rash judgments,” and “the sneers
of selfish men,” instilling instead a “cheerful faith” that the
world is full of blessings. The speaker then encourages the moon
to shine upon his sister, and the wind to blow against her, and
he says to her that in later years, when she is sad or fearful,
the memory of this experience will help to heal her. And if he himself
is dead, she can remember the love with which he worshipped nature.
In that case, too, she will remember what the woods meant to the
speaker, the way in which, after so many years of absence, they
became more dear to him—both for themselves and for the fact that
she is in them.
Form
“Tintern Abbey” is composed in blank verse, which is a
name used to describe unrhymed lines in iambic pentameter. Its style
is therefore very fluid and natural; it reads as easily as if it
were a prose piece. But of course the poetic structure is tightly
constructed; Wordsworth’s slight variations on the stresses of iambic
rhythms is remarkable. Lines such as “Here, under this dark sycamore,
and view” do not quite conform to the stress-patterns of the meter,
but fit into it loosely, helping Wordsworth approximate the sounds
of natural speech without grossly breaking his meter. Occasionally,
divided lines are used to indicate a kind of paragraph break, when
the poet changes subjects or shifts the focus of his discourse.
Commentary
The subject of “Tintern Abbey” is memory—specifically,
childhood memories of communion with natural beauty. Both generally
and specifically, this subject is hugely important in Wordsworth’s
work, reappearing in poems as late as the “Intimations of Immortality”
ode. “Tintern Abbey” is the young Wordsworth’s first great statement
of his principle (great) theme: that the memory of pure communion
with nature in childhood works upon the mind even in adulthood,
when access to that pure communion has been lost, and that the maturity
of mind present in adulthood offers compensation for the loss of
that communion—specifically, the ability to “look on nature” and
hear “human music”; that is, to see nature with an eye toward its
relationship to human life. In his youth, the poet says, he was
thoughtless in his unity with the woods and the river; now, five
years since his last viewing of the scene, he is no longer thoughtless,
but acutely aware of everything the scene has to offer him. Additionally,
the presence of his sister gives him a view of himself as he imagines
himself to have been as a youth. Happily, he knows that this current
experience will provide both of them with future memories, just
as his past experience has provided him with the memories that flicker
across his present sight as he travels in the woods.
