1178 Wordsworth, William
(1897), which details her life with William in the
English Lake District and their encounters with
other writers. William used her diary to recall details
about events that appear in his poetry, and he even
borrowed some of her descriptions for his own use.
In “Tintern Abbey,” Wordsworth states that
Dorothy has likewise learned the lessons of nature
and may have integrated them even more deeply than
has he. When he looks back over the five years that
have passed since they last visited the Wye, he writes,
“in thy voice I catch / The language of my former
heart, and read / My former pleasures in the shooting
lights / Of thy wild eyes” (ll. 116–119). Throughout
the poem, Wordsworth has been anticipating his
own death, and he concludes with what is actually
a 38-line-long prayer that nature would continue to
bless those who attend to her lessons. He asks that
after his death, nature will continue with Dorothy,
maturing the wild ecstasies of her youth into a more
sober pleasure, populating her memory with scenes
of its beauty no matter what outward turmoil she
undergoes, and helping her to remember that her
presence has intensified his worship of nature with
a “deeper zeal / Of holier love” (ll. 154–155). His
concluding lines ask Dorothy not to forget that his
appreciation of natural beauty is “More dear, both for
themselves and for thy sake!” His insistence is that
the deep connection between two people can make
their experience of life all the more richer.
It is worthy of note that “Tintern Abbey” was
originally first published in the 1798 first edi-
tion of Lyrical Ballads, the first definitive book of
romantic poetry, which was written by Wordsworth
and Coleridge. The book was already at the print-
ers when Wordsworth composed this poem, and
he insisted that it be included as the volume’s final
poem. Hence, although it is different in tone from
the other poems of the collection, it gives a clearer
idea of Wordsworth’s philosophy of the natural
world and the path of his future writing. The last-
minute insertion of the poem into the touchstone
Lyrical Ballads shows Wordsworth’s love for his
sister Dorothy, his respect for her influence on his
thought and poetry, and his understanding of the
twin importance of family and nature in receiving
the mysterious gift of life.
Kelly MacPhail
nature in “Lines Composed a Few Miles
above Tintern Abbey”
The late 18th century brought tremendous changes
to Britain. The Industrial Revolution made cottage
industries obsolete, caused thousands of people to
leave their farms to move to overcrowded cities,
and polluted the nation’s waterways and air. Seeing
these changes and resisting what they saw as the
artificiality of the 18th century, romantics devel-
oped an abiding respect for all things natural that
is characteristic of the movement. Nowhere is this
truer than in the poetry of William Wordsworth.
Even as a child, Wordsworth reveled in the pleasures
of nature. His later travels, especially through the
English countryside, only increased his appreciation
for the natural world, and much of his poetry con-
cerns man’s relationship to nature.
In “Tintern Abbey,” in which the abbey itself
is only mentioned in the title, Wordsworth draws
the reader into his experience with an immediacy
emphasized by the present tense and by the specific-
ity of time and place identified in the complete title.
We become privy to the poet’s thought processes
as he contemplates the scene he visited five years
previously and reflects on its influence on him. The
opening blank-verse stanza is a detailed description
of the natural world he sees before him. He hears the
waters “rolling from their mountain-springs / With a
soft inland murmur” (3–4) and sees orchards “clad in
one green hue” (13) and “hedgerows, little lines / of
sportive wood run wild” (15–16), all of which seem to
merge into a single impression of connectedness. In
this stanza, the unity is among the natural elements,
where the “landscape [connects] with the quiet of
the sky” (8) and the green fields flow into “the very
door[s]” (17) of the farm cottages. The human and
natural intermingle imperceptibly. Even the smoke
from the fires built by humans is “sent up, in silence”
to meet the sky and seems to come “from among the
trees” (18). Yet among these specific sensory images,
Wordsworth intimates there is something deeper in
nature, some “thoughts of more deep seclusion” (7).
The physical connections among objects perceived in
the landscape suggest a more profound connection
among nature, humankind, and the divine.
In the second verse paragraph, Wordsworth’s
mind returns to the less peaceful time he has spent