Tintern Abbey

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 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 10
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. 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, 20
Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire
The Hermit sits alone.

These are only the first few lines from Tintern Abbey, but the entire poem rests upon the idea of revisiting something, whether physically revisiting a place from the past or coming back to it in memory. Wordsworth describes the scenery of the place he knows so well and how each entity that makes up the scenery has some sort of effect on him. His senses seem to be overwhelmed with the place he has come back to.

So many things can happen when revisiting a place in memory. Wordsworth talks about the realization that human beings move on from what they once were into the person they have become, and it continues to happen that way throughout life. With every passing moment the present moves into the past and the future moves into the present. It's a cyclical process that is hard to even process because it takes place so rapidly; it is and then it is gone and human beings often miss it.

He also talks about the serenity of being able to revisit something special in memory. He talks about this revisitation as an act of making the heart grow fonder, as he discusses the ability to be away from something for an extended period of time and being able to come back to it with more love for it than when it was left. Memories, moments, time, and the soul are discussed heavily in Wordsworth's work. It is as if he is telling the reader to take comfort and feel safe within the realm of memory because that is what it's there for; I have found often that a memory can be a cruel thing, but I think that more often than not, memory serves as a unique way of preserving moments.