"Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey; On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye

During a Tour, July 13, 1798"

"Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey" was written in July of 1798 and published
as the last poem of Lyrical Ballads, also in 1798. At the age of twenty-three (in August of 1793),
Wordsworth had visited the desolate abbey alone. In 1798 he returned to the same place with his
beloved sister, Dorothy Wordsworth, who was a year younger. Dorothy is referred to as "Friend"
throughout the poem. Often the poem is simply called "Tintern Abbey." The abbreviated title is
effective for clarity's sake, but it is also misleading, as the poem does not actually take place in
the abbey. Wordsworth begins his poem by telling the reader that it has been five years since he
has been to this place a few miles from the abbey. He describes the "Steep and lofty cliffs," the
"wild secluded scene," the "quiet of the sky," the "dark sycamore" he sits under, the trees of the
orchard, and the "pastoral farms" with "wreaths of smoke" billowing from their chimneys.

This full title more accurately locates the situation of the poem and anchors the experience of the
poem in a particular place and time. In 160 lines of blank verse, the poet describes what he hears
and sees again five years after he last visited this scene along the Wye River in Wales, near the
ruins of an ancient abbey. The poet first notices cliffs, trees, hedges, and farmhouses. Then, he
imagines that someone might be camping amid the woods. What he cannot see becomes
important, and he lets his imagination go. Then, he recalls how he has recently left a city, where
he lived during some of the time since visiting the Wye River. He believes that his spirit was
sustained by his memories of this natural scenery through a time of difficulty while in the city.
The feelings attached to remembered scenes of nature became sources of imaginative power
when detached from actual observation of those scenes.

The poet recalls his attention to the immediate scene before him again, and he compares his
present feelings with those that he had when first visiting this spot. At that time, he was young
and thoughtless, unaware of his differences from other animal life; now, however, he feels more
burdened by the responsibilities of being human, of having a heart that sympathizes with the
sufferings of other human beings. The feelings of youth have been revived by this revisit, and
those feelings have energized his moral imagination to universal proportions.
Suddenly, the poet addresses his sister. She seems to be standing beside him, observing this same
scene with him. This visit, however, is her first, and he imagines the future, when her memories
of this scene will work for her as his do for him at this time. He utters a prayer that nature will
supply his sister with the same restorative power of feeling in the future. In this way, each will be
a “worshipper of Nature.”

My Heart Leaps Up when I behold

On the surface, Wordsworth’s poem, My Heart Leaps Up, is about the simple beauty of a
rainbow. Looking at it more closely, the poet is saying that people should maintain their sense of
childlike wonder well into adulthood and old age. He is saying that nature, symbolized by the
rainbow, for him will always be divine, and he thinks it should be for everyone. He expressed his
love towards nature in his literary works. According to him “Poetry is spontaneous overflow of
powerful feelings: it takes it origin from emotions recollected in tranquility.” In this poem he
recollects an experience of his childhood days and gives his emotions and feelings a meaning.
When the poet sees the rainbow in the sky, his heart becomes extremely happy. The situation
was same when he was a child. He used to become happy when he saw rainbow in the sky in his
child hood. The condition is still same in the present. Now the poet is an adult and his heart still
becomes happy when he sees rainbow. He wants his heart to be happy in future also in the same
way when he will see the rainbow. And he wishes to die if the happiness in his heart for the
rainbow doesn’t remain same when he will become old in future. He thinks that the child is
father of the man because a child has all the characteristics that grow along with him and
become the characteristics of the man. In the same way a growing man develops the
characteristics he showed as a child. So, the poet wishes to tie each of his coming days with the
worship and love of nature as childhood.

“I wandered Lonely as a Cloud”

The original title of the poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” is merely the first line of the
poem. It is somewhat misleading, as it suggests that there is something about the poet’s
loneliness in the poem. But the poem is all about the beauty of the daffodils and how they
brought happiness to the poet. The poet was travelling aimlessly just like a cloud over the hills
and valleys of the mountainous Lake District in England. At that time, suddenly he came across a
large number of golden daffodils beside the lake and under the trees. The flowers were ‘fluttering
and dancing’ in the breeze.The poet directly compares himself to a cloud, as he was wandering
without aim, just like the clouds. He also uses the expressions like ‘crowd’ and ‘host’ to mean
that he saw a large area covered with a whole lot of daffodils. In the last line, the poet
personifies the flowers by saying that they were fluttering (like birds or butterflies) and dancing
(like human beings). There is also an indication that it was a breezy day. So we get an overall
idea of the landscape which includes the valleys and hills, the lake, the trees, the flowers beneath
them and the breezy atmosphere.

In the second stanza, the speaker shifts his focus from the daffodils and compares them with the
“continuous…stars…that shine and twinkle on the milky way”. The speaker allows to reader to
experience the majesty of seeing “ten thousand [stars]…at a glance”. At this point, the reader
begins to sense that he is not on earth anymore, but rather in a place full of majesty and beauty,
perhaps heaven or some other form of afterlife. Throughout the poem, rhyme and rhythm help it
to flow smoothly, giving the readers a continued sense of utopian peace. The rhyme scheme, ab
ab cc, is an integral part of bringing the reader a sense of rest and peace. This stanza not only
allows the reader to feel the sense of peace the speaker feels, but also to feel life. This is not
simply a peaceful place; it is full of life. Figurative language and personification are used when
the daffodils are described as tossing “their heads”. This gives the readers the feeling that this
peaceful, utopian place, is also lively and spirited.

The third stanza continues the personification describing how the waves “danced” and the
daffodils “out-did the sparkling waves in glee”. This continues to give readers a sense of peace
and joy combined with lively action. The personifications of the daffodils also reveals their
effect on the speaker as he regards them with life and attributes to them the ability to feel “glee”.
The speaker then shifts the focus back to himself as a poet when he says, “A poet could not but
be gay”. This portrays the effect the dazzling daffodils had on the speaker. When he says, “What
wealth the show to me had brought”, it shows that the mere sight of the golden daffodils
somehow enriched his life and brought wealth to him. The use of the word “wealth” reveals that
this sense of peace and joy are worth more to the speaker than money or other worldly wealth.
This also gives the reader the idea that some things are worth more than money and worldly
goods, such as peace, joy, and life.

In the fourth stanza, the speaker shifts from a peaceful, joyful tone to one of pensive thought. He
also comes down from the cloud and reveals the reality of his current physical state. Even though
he no longer sees the dancing waves and the golden daffodils, he reveals that he will never forget
them when he says, “they flash upon that inward eye”. The speaker reveals that he not only still
has the memory of the daffodils, but that he has also kept the memory of how they made him
feel. He reveals this when he says, “And then my heart with pleasure fills, and dances with the
daffodils”. This gives the reader the sense that the speaker has either been dreaming, or has had
an experience in which he caught a glimpse of heaven. It leaves the reader with a yearning to
find that perfect place of utopian peace.