gifts

We are studying Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey this week. He was truly a gifted writer. This poem has much to say about the power of nature on the imagination (especially dealing with memory). I do not agree with all that he concludes about this topic, yet I like some of his insights and observations. One section (lines 61-64) on memories anticipated is well put:

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.

Another section (lines 81-86) describes the joys & pains of maturation:

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 recompence.

The final section looked at here (lines 92-102) is one that from its language seems to describe, in a poetic manner, his perception of God:

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,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.

It is beautiful. Yet, sadly for Wordsworth, he identifies this religious feeling with nature herself a few lines later; how tragic that he cannot see Who it was who rules over nature (worshipping the creature more than the Creator). He was so close yet infinitly off the mark. Wordsworth was truly blessed with poetic perception yet what did he do with this gift?

I think, though, that if we understand the position from which he comes, we can still enjoy and benefit from his insights, since they are still insights (and beautifully rendered)