Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised;
But for those first affections,

Those shadowy recollections

Which, be they what they may,

Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,

Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;

Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal silence: truths that wake

To perish never;

Which neither listlessness nor mad endeavor,

Nor man, nor boy,

Nor all that is at enmity with joy,

Can utterly abolish or destroy!

Hence in a season of calm weather,

Though inland far we be,

Our souls have sight of that immortal sea,
Which brought us hither;

Can in a moment travel thither,

And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
And let the young lambs bound

As to the tabor's sound!

We in thought will join your throng,

Ye that pipe and ye that play,

Ye that through your hearts to-day
Feel the gladness of the May!

What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight -

Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy,

Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering ;

In the faith that looks through death,

150

160

170

180

In years that bring the philosophic mind.
And, O ye fountains, meadows, hills, and groves,
Forebode not any severing of our loves!

Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;

I only have relinquished one delight
To live beneath your more habitual sway.

I love the brooks which down their channels fret,
Even more than when I tripped lightly as they ;
The innocent brightness of a new-born day
Is lovely yet;

The clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality ;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears;
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

190

200

NOTES TO TINTERN ABBEY.

(The numbers refer to lines.)

TINTERN ABBEY is a famous ecclesiastical ruin on the right bank of the Wye in Monmouthshire. It was founded in 1131. Though the Abbey is mentioned in the title, it is not referred to at all in the poem itself.

The poem was composed in a single day. In the words of Myers, "The lines written above Tintern Abbey have become, as it were, the locus classicus, or consecrated formulary of the Wordsworthian faith. They say in brief what it is the work of the poet's biographer to say in detail."

1. Five summers, etc. The poet had visited the same spot five years before, during the restless period that followed his graduation at Cambridge. 4. Once again, etc. As we have already learned, Wordsworth's love of nature was intense. Having once seen this beautiful spot, he could not forget it. In the following lines of this paragraph, he dwells with loving tenderness on the various objects of beauty-the lofty cliffs, the secluded landscape, the cottages, orchards, hedgerows,

"And wreaths of smoke

Sent up, in silence, from among the trees.”

27. I have owed to them, etc. - Wordsworth cared but little for books; nature was his great teacher. Nature filled him with feelings of deep tranquillity and delight, and taught him something of the significance of this “unintelligible world.”

65. There is life and food, etc. - The beautiful landscape would not fade from his memory. Both its forms and its teachings would continue to abide with him as a blessing.

67. From what I was, etc. On his first visit, he had not yet learned the meaning of nature. Its forms and scenes filled him with a wild delight, as is beautifully described in the following lines, but they brought him no lesson of wisdom.

89. For I have learned, etc. Here we find the soul of Wordsworth's poetry. Nature and humanity are in fundamental harmony. An invisible presence pervades all things, both animate and inanimate. His highest aim is to live in sympathy with that divine presence, and to make it

"The nurse,

The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul

Of all my moral being."

115. For thou art, etc. - His sister Dorothy. Her sympathy with nature was scarcely less than that of the poet himself. See sketch of Wordsworth. 126. For she can so inform, etc. — The poet realized in his own character what he here describes. Calmness of soul, loftiness of thought, and

"Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold

Is full of blessings,"

these are traits that make Wordsworth's life so beautiful.

138. And in after-years, etc. - The poet expects that his sister will pass through the same experience as himself; that her wild ecstasies in the presence of nature will be sobered by reflection and intelligent sympathy with the soul of things.

NOTES TO INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY.

(The numbers refer to lines.)

IN addition to what has been said in the sketch of Wordsworth, the following account given by him of the poem will form a valuable introduction. He says: "This was composed during my residence at Town-End, Grasmere. Two year at least passed between the writing of the first four stanzas and the remaining part. To the attentive and competent reader the whole sufficiently explains itself, but there may be no harm in adverting here to particular feelings or experiences of my own mind on which the structure of the poem partly rests. Nothing was more difficult for me in childhood than to admit the notion of death as a state applicable to my own being. I have elsewhere said,

--

"A simple child

That lightly draws its breath
And feels its life in every limb,

What should it know of death?"

But it was not so much from the source of animal vivacity that my difficulty came, as from a sense of the indomitableness of the spirit within me. I used to brood over the stories of Enoch and Elijah, and almost persuade myself that, whatever might become of others, I should be translated in something of the same way to heaven. With a feeling congenial to this, I was often unable to think of external things as having external existence, and

I communed with all that I saw as something not apart from, but inherent in, my own immaterial nature. Many times, while going to school, have I grasped at a wall or tree to recall myself from this abyss of idealism to the reality. At that time I was afraid of mere processes. In later periods of life I have deplored, as we have all reason to do, a subjugation of an opposite character, and have rejoiced over the remembrances, as is expressed in the lines "Obstinate Questionings, etc. To that dream-like vividness and splendor which invests objects of sight in childhood, every one, I believe, if he would look back, could bear testimony, and I need not dwell upon it here; but having in the poem regarded this as a presumptive evidence of a prior state of existence, I think it right to protest against the conclusion which has given pain to some good and pious persons that I meant to inculcate such a belief. It is far too shadowy a notion to be recommended to faith as more than an element in our instincts of immortality. But let us bear in mind that though the idea is not advanced in Revelation, there is nothing there to contradict it, and the fall of man presents an analogy in its favor. Accordingly, a pre-existent state has entered into the creed of many nations, and among all persons acquainted with classic literature is known as an ingredient in Platonic philosophy. Archimedes said that he could move the world if he had a point whereon to rest his machine. Who has not felt the same aspirations as regards his own mind? Having to wield some of its elements when I was impelled to write this poem on the immortality of the soul, I took hold of the notion of pre-existence as having sufficient foundation in humanity for authorizing me to make for my purpose the best use of it I could as a poet." 6. Of yore the childhood days of the poet. The usual sense is of old

time.

=

9. The things, etc. Compare with this Shelley's "A Lament: "