-tp:/hmwenlishorl42011.io/ 258 / WILLIAM woRDsWoRTH Yet all do still aver 2 The little Babe lies buried there, Beneath that hill of moss s0 fair. “1 cannot tell how this may be, But plain it is the Thorn is bound With heavy tufts of moss that strive 25 To drag it to the ground; And this I know, full many a time, When sho was on the mountain high, By day, and in the silent night, ‘When all the stars shone clear and bright, 20 That I have heard her cry, ‘Oh misery! oh misery! ‘Oh woo is me! oh misery!" Man—Ape. 1798 1798 Lines' Composed! a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798 Five yoars have past; five summers, with the length, Of five long winters! and again | hear ‘These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a soft inland murmur.2—Once again 5 Do I behold these steep and lofiy 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 1O_Here, under this dark sycamore, and view ‘Those plots of cottage-ground, those 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 15 These hecge-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! 1. No posmotmine wie comgoned undecrcame _Aey Touram and Reman Lande! nip rnc ener ano trare Onto) te Pg edo tn mad eB) ge oe fo tay put of rite dw tlt rated Er et pa pe Tal eit he Wye vey and Thee nfl bythe He 3 re inter Abeys in Megoaltthn, above tern (Worwortt ate, 1798. Ul wat on asta wing our Auguat 1995, ‘TD the tn bd ww orf anng teh, She Sewer twenties joan oll fetus not mlAw Sere, AKooboan ee o TINTERN ABBEY / With some uncertain notice, as might seem 20 Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, 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: 25 But of, 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, 30. With tranquil restoration: feelings too (Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps, [As have no slight of trivial influence ‘On that best portion of a good man’s life, His Ittle, nameless, unremembered, acts 35 Of kindness and of love. Not less, I trust, To them I may have owed another gift, ‘Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, In which the burthen® of the mystery, Iurden In which the heavy and the weary weight 40 Ofall this unintelligible word, Is lightened: —that serene and blessed mood, Im which the affections gently lead us on,— Uni the breath ofthis corporeal frame ‘And even the motion of our human blood 45 Almost suspended we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: ‘While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of)ey, We see into the life of things. 1 this 50 Be but a vain belie, yet, oh! how oft — In darkness and amid the many shapes Ofjoyless daylight; when the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, Have hung upon the beatings of my heart— 58. How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, (© sylvan Wyel thou wanderer thro! the woods, How often has my spirit tumed to thee! ‘And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, With many secogaitions dim and faint, 60 And somewhat of a sad perplexity, 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 65 For future years. And so I dare to hope, ‘Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first260 / WILLIAM WoRDswoRTH | 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, 70 Wherever nature led: more like a man 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) 78 To me was all in all.T cannot paint ‘What then I was. The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and theie forms, were then to me 50 _An appelite; a feeling and a love, ‘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, 85 And all it dizzy raptures.? Not for this 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 90 _Ofthoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still, sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue, And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy 98 Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting surs, ‘And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: tbo A motion and a spirit that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, ‘And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still ‘A lover of the meadows and the woods, ‘And mountains; and of all that we behold 5 From this green earth; ofall the mighty world Of eye, and ear, —both what they half create,* ‘And what perceive; well pleased to recognise In nature and the language of the sense, ‘The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, no The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being. 2 Unee 6l, contin Wondewors famed Ha pn sta (ar St), n which forthe i ‘Latin ft hme wage othe powing uptime alde though o sens ‘Aetna off ewig ions the Tay ine ha a lve revel tan ai asl seme the your bop pay pe ‘ponent (ins 3 the pontaeleren ikeg Sry and equtoal patie alee that ‘Sh le dna nce oF 93th wae ‘eae of ind on the eeason he ttntp//wwenlishorts2011.info/ TuNTERN ABBEY J 267 Nor perchance, If were not thus taught, should I the more Suffer my genial spirits to decay: For thou art with me here upon the banks tus Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend. ‘My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch ‘The language of my former heart, and read My former pleasures in the shooting lights Of thy wild eyes, Oh! yet a litle while uo May I behold in thee what I was once, My deat, dear Sister! and this prayer T 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 15 Fromjoy toy: for she can so inform The mind that is within us, s0 impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed ‘With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,” Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, 4 Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all ‘The dreary intercourse of daily life, Shall eer prevail against us, or disturb Gur cheerful faith, that all which we behold Is full of blessings. Therefore Tet the moon 15 Shine on thee in thy solitary walks [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 M0 Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, ‘Thy memory be as a dwelling-place For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then, If solitude, of fear, or pain, or grief, Should be thy portion," with what healing thoughts ineitnet, dowry 4S Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, ‘And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance ~ FI should be where I no more can heat ‘Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams Of past existence! —wilt thou then forget fo That on the banks of this delightful stream We stood together; and that 1, so long ‘A worshipper of Nature, hither came Unwearied in that service; rather 88 With warmer love—oh! with far deeper zeal 48 Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget, ‘That after many wanderings, many years ‘Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, cenmyome Comrie Qe wah inn ied ran oes Fe any one Ce ee ary yor Rmale Lt 7, Mihon years aur (er Leas 326-19 LENSE hay atJoe 2, 2627 WILLIAM woRDsWoRTH ‘And this green pastoral landscape, were to me More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake! Joly 1798 1798 Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1802) To the first edition of Lyrica! Ballads, published jointly with Coleridge In 1798, Wordsworth prefixed an "Advertsement* aserting thal the majorly of the poems were "to be considered as experiments to elermine "row far the language Of conversation in the mile and lower classes of sonety is adapted to the purposss of poetic pleasure." In the second, two-volume exlton of 1800, Wordsworth, aided ‘by frequent conversations with Coleridge, ‘expanded the Advertsoment into a that justified the poems not as exper. ‘mens, but as exemplifying the principles of all goa pocty. The Preface was enlarged forthe third edition of Lyrica! Ballads, published two years later, This last version of 1802 is reprinted here Although some of its ideas had antecedents in the lator elghtonth contury, the Preface a6 a whole deserves it reputation as a revolutionary manifesto about the nature of poetry. Like many radical statoments, howewr, it daims to go back to the implict principles Uuat governed the great pocty of the past but have been per verted in recent practice. Most discussions ofthe Preface, following the lead of Cole "idge in chapters 14 and 17 ot his Biographia Litera, have focused on Woresworts assertions about tho vali language of poetry, on wihich he bases his attack on the "poetic diction’ of eightzenth-century poss As Coleridge pointed out, Wordsworth’ argument about this sue is far from clear. However, Wordsworth questioning of ‘ho underlying premises of neoclassical potey went even further. His Preface impiic- ‘ily denies the traditional assumption that the potic genes constitute a hierarchy, ‘fora epic and trepedy atthe top down through comedy, satire, pastoral, to the short Iyrc atthe lowest reaches ofthe poetic sale; he abo rejects the traditional principle ‘F'decorum" which required the poet to arrange matters so thatthe poeris subject (cspocally the socal dass of ts protagonists) and its level of diction conforme fo the status of the literary kind on the poetic scale. ‘When Wordsworth assert in the Poface that he deliberately chose to represent “incidents and situations from common lif," he translated his democratic sympathies into critical rms, justifying his use of paasanis, children, outcasts, criminals, and rradiwomen as serious auljocts of poetc and even tragic concer, He also undercok ‘© write in “a selection of language really used by men," on the grounds that there con ba no "essential difference between the langage of prose and metrical sition" In making this claim Wordsworth attacked the neoclassical principle required the languoge, in many Kinds of poems, lobo clevated over every Inspec mow whined and cgi dition an yet ures ofopnc, Words wWorts views about the vl language of poetry are asec on the new premise that “all god poety isthe spantancous overow of powerflfelings"~spontaneous. hat fs, at the moment of composition, even though the proces is influenced by price thought and aoquired poetic ski, Wordswors assertions abou the materials and diction of poetry have been grea infuntal in exenng he ange of sono iterate to nae he enon Props and ordinary things ard evenis, as well as in justifying a poetry of sincerity rather than of artifice, expressed in th ordinary language of if time. But in the long view other aspects of his Preface have been no less significant in establishing its impor. tance, not only as @ turing point in English eniticism bat also asa central document in moder culture, Wordsworth fared that a new urban, industrial society's mass ‘media and mass culture (glimpsed in the Preface when he refers derisively to contem- porary Gothic novels and German melodramas) were threatening to blunt the human