"Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey"

This is an excerpt from a poem by William Wordsworth, “Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey,” which I have just read for my class in Romantic Literature one month after leaving Nazareth Farm (the italics are mine!):

“…And this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; ‘tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e’er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain winds be free
To blow against thee: and in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; Oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations!”

All of these lines make me remember Nazareth Farm, where every greeting overflowed with true kindness. When Wordsworth mentions in his poems the sublimity of the mountains, streams, and setting sun, I think of the hills and streams surrounding the Farm and of watching the burning orange sun set while we sat atop a rock on the highest point of the land. I feel lucky to have experienced what Wordsworth conveys. It’s like a quiet determination to see God in all things.

--By Adrienne Petro, English major (in case you couldn’t tell) at Ithaca College in Ithaca, NY, February 9, 2012