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LyricRomantic · 17986 min · 1 passageDemanding

Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey

William Wordsworth →

Wordsworth returns to a riverbank he loved as a boy and finds that he can no longer feel what he felt. The poem is about what remains when the feeling goes.

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The return
Enjambment

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 . — Once again Do I behold these and lofty cliffs, That on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep ; and connect The landscape with the quiet of the sky. The day is come when I again repose Here, under this dark sycamore, and view These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves 'Mid groves and copses.

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Plain English

Five years have passed — five summers and five long winters — and I hear these waters again, rolling from the mountain springs with a soft inland murmur. Once again I see these steep, lofty cliffs, which stamp a wild, secluded scene with an even deeper seclusion, and connect the landscape with the quiet sky. The day has come when I rest here again under this dark sycamore and look at these cottage plots and orchard clumps, which in this season, with their unripe fruit, are all one green and lose themselves among the woods.

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