Lines

COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY, ON REVISITING THE BANKS OF THE WYE DURING A TOUR.

FIVE years have passed; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters; and again I hear

These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur. Once again

Do I behold these steep and lofty 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
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
Among the woods and copses, nor disturb
The wild green landscape. Once again I see
These hedge-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,
With some uncertain notice, as might seem,
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,

While, with an eye made quiet by the

power

Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.

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 through the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!

And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
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

For future years. And so I dare to hope,

Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first

I 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,

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)
To me was all in all.-I 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 their forms, were then to me An appetite-a feeling and a love,

That had no need of a remoter charm,

By thought supplied, or any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.-That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its 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

Of thoughtless 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
Of elevated thoughts-a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,