CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
1. Tintern Abbey
Five years have past; five summers, with the length 1 Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a soft inland murmur.
The speaker starts first stanza by telling us the length of times that have passed and automatically changed from time to time. Five years of summers and long winters had been passed through but nature remains similar as it is – rolling waters from mountain springs with its ever-lasting soft water fall sound roaring to the quietness of surroundings and affecting the listening around.
The speaker came to the place that he has already left for a long time. His first impression to the place when he has just arrived as same as the past years he was. The surrounding greets him by the beautiful sound of the wind and the gurgling water.
— Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, 5
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
He can feel the cliff as if he touches it just like the old time when he was here long time ago. The scene has delightly portrays what landscape looks like in reflection to deep and encouraging sensibility of the circumstances of persuading the contradiction of the stillness of the sky above and the emerging impression of the surroundings.
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.
Then, that view of delight has emerged that feeling on a place full of dense trees of sycamore which are high and lush as the comfortable air can be felt inside the body. Then, the plot of cottage ground and orchard-tufts can be beautifully seen with their unripe fruits at the particular season.
In the past, he always played in the wood, under the big tree called sycamore and he made a cottage which is exactly under that big tree as a place to rest or to shelter in case it was raining when he was there. When he fell asleep, he could clearly see the green view above which is full with the leaves and the fruit. To the extent we could not distinguish which leaves and the fruit.
Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines 15 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!
From his point of view, he can see the beautiful irregularly arranged lines which are naturally created by the hedge-rows. The farms were described pastoral as the farm lives in the village, greening the land.
Appearance of smoke bothers his view to the scene, raised the curiosity of where the smoke came from.
He stunned with the terraced rice field of neatly arranged like a staircase and what makes him more stunned is the scene that he is looking at is green, full of green. He is enjoying the beauty around when suddenly he sees smoke coming out of the woods near the farm. He is wondering why there is smoke in the middle of woods, a homeless wood.
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.
His curiosity is being answered in these lines by the speaker himself. He thought that the smoke came from homeless vagrant dwellers who made bonfire to warm their body and to protect them from the wildness of the wood or perhaps it comes from a cave in which the hermit is lonely sitting and accompanied by the fire he made to cure his loneliness.
The words “again”in these lines were repeated four times are to emphasize that the speaker has been here before, he has seen all the surroundings that he described, he could not forget the place where he lived long time ago.
These beauteous forms, Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: 25
Though, he has left the place for long time but the presence of the beautiful scene he has described in the previous stanza still haunt his mind in the present time which can be seen by closing eyes as blind.
Since his last visit, the memory of the "beauteous forms," or the awesome view he has just described, has been so present to him that he could practically see it – not like the description of a "landscape to a blind man," who wouldn't be able to imagine it fully.
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind, 30 With tranquil restoration:
Usually, he can feel the beauteous forms in his daily life in the town.
When he feels tired and lonely, it can be felt flowing into his blood, giving
him sensational feeling then it purifies the mind from all bothering thoughts with quiet recovery.
The speaker often felt comforted by his memory when he was lonely or cooped up in the noise of city.When he was feeling totally fried by a long day in the big bad city, he felt the beauteous forms somewhere in his blood and his heartbefore it finally went into his mind. However the
"beauteous forms got into his blood, he found that the memory of this view along the Wye could restore him to "tranquility," or calmness.
— feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps, As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts 35 Of kindness and of love.
Also, he can feel a pleasure that cannot been remembered anymore as it has gone by the board without any significant influence. This pleasures are the best things of people’s life; every feelings even the littlest things, unknown, forgotten, and acts of love and goodness.
Speaker tells his readers that his first visit to this place gave him
"sensations sweet" when he was in the "lonely rooms" of the city. He intimates that these "feelings... / Of unremembered pleasure" may have helped him to be a better person, perhaps simply by putting him in a better mood than he would have been.
Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect more sublime;
He believes it is the good things for him, and he feels indebted to such pleasures he has got so far about what he called the more sublime aspects. That feeling has been helpful for him since it is always there when the speaker feels happy or sad or even worse than sad. It makes him feel as he needs to do something to recompense what that feeling has done for him.
that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight 40 Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened:
Of the more sublime aspect that he called blessed mood because it makes the burden, exhaustion, and weight of life are lightened by the blessed pleasure. Helping them to switch all bad things – burden, exhaustion, and weight –become great pleasure for him.
In these lines, he shows how big his love to the feeling to the extent he called it blessed mood. Blessed mood as it has a great power to change what is bad become a good thing and useful for people in this case for the speaker. In these lines, it told that the blessed mood he called
can change the heavy and weary burden of the world become light and pure spirit.
— that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on, Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood 45 Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
The quietness and pleasure, softly lead them no matter until the breath in our body has been suspended even the blood stops flowing nearly inside the body because the best thing when we lay sleeping is becoming a living soul, our eyes are closed but our soul venture deep into mind and wandering in wonderland.
He wants to show us how valuable the feeling for him since it has given him a great affection for his life, lead him to a right way, become a part of him. He will not let it go away from himself even though he die, he will keep it alive in his immortal soul.
While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things. 50
Then, he is sleeping quietly, he enjoy the time when he cannot recognize the surroundings, he can feel the life of things in the peace of his soul and harmonious sound which only can be heard by him.
In this stanza there is switch from the subject “I’, “me”, “my”become
“us”, “we”, “our”. As though, the speaker wants the reader to be included in this story he’s describing.
If this Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft, In darkness and amid the many shapes Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, 55 Have hung upon the beatings of my heart
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,
O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods, How often has my spirit turned to thee!
He believes with all these wonderful surroundings but often darkness and various shapes formed every day, restlessness mastering himself, gloom of the world make him hesitate about the presence of these pleasures he has described and felt. Usually, at this critical time, the spirit to believe is never reduced while he is turning to the river Wye, calling the spirit of adventure inside his body raise his spirit up not to stop believing about the reality he has just faced.
And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, 60 With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity, The picture of the mind revives again:
The word “now”starts this stanza means he finished describing the flashback view and come back to the present life which bring back the picture of his past memory even though in his confusion about his own thought with its capture of something vague and not clear somehow the description of his mind.
He finally back to the now-real condition but still confuse about what he is feeling at the moment. In his perplexity, his mind helps him to tell him what really happen by showing him the memory that has long forgotten.
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 65 For futureyears.
In these lines, he looks out to the surroundings, feeling glad because what he is looking now is the great pleasure for him, according to what he expects – a beautiful view which is almost similar with what he has just described. With the pleasing thoughts, he optimistically looks forward for the better future in his life.
The mind or the thought he has had makes him more optimistic in looking the future. He believes that the future will be better with the present situation he has just faced and it is good omen for him to face the future.
And so I dare to hope,
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first I came among these hills;
The great thought he got from the previous lines makes him optimistic in facing the ever-changing circumstances. His spirit revives the memory when he was first here long time ago, the impression of the place, the memories are left here and still a trace.
He continues here how sure he is about his great expectation for the better future even in the uncertainty of his surroundings. He comes to a place in which he starts to memorize.
when like a roe
I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, 70 Wherever nature led:
He imagined himself as a roe, runs everywhere at the side of the mountain, plays along the river flowed, jump nimbly to and fro, no matter what happen he feels free in the great widespread nature just like a roe that always feels happy because the nature never betrays him.
more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads, than one Who sought the thing he loved.
After finished liken himself to a roe, he starts his journey by running from one place to another place seems like he is avoiding something he fears but it is not described clearly about what he fears actually. Instead of trying what he loves, he prefers to run from something undefined.
In these lines, the reader might be confused with what the speaker decided to do. From the previous lines, he showed the optimistic thought and thinks with confidence after what the pleasure has given to him.
Unfortunately, here he is afraid of something and tries to run away from the unknown “something” that makes him forgot about what he really wants for a moment.
For nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,
And their glad animal movements all gone by) 75 To me was all in all. — I cannot paint
What then I was.
In these lines, there is something interesting that line 74 and 75 are in parentheses which tells about his childhood that is very rough for a boy who are still inexperienced. He said so because at that time, cheerfulness and happiness among human beings even animals have gone and passed away. It means everything for him - the togetherness they had spent, the happiness they shared each other, the pleasure that he would not get from another life, his life is incomplete without them. That is why he finds it hard
to describe himself in the past perhaps because his past was full of story about he and his friends.
The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me 80 An appetite; a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, nor any interest Unborrowed from the eye.
The sound of waterfall echoes in his ears as pursue him relentlessly, remind him again to the scene he has dreamt about – high green mountains with tall rock that is surrounded by vast and fresh wilderness. These encourage him to revive the feeling of love and pleasure without necessary to remain a close distance and smartness or any enchantment. Interestingly, visual imagery is not needed to enjoy the beauty of God’s creation because it seems that nature merge to his body, blood and mind, it also can be enjoyed by feeling it deeply. These lines convinces us that the nature means everything for him and it is approved here as he has special privilege to the nature, seems like they have been friend for a decade.
— That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more, 85
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.
He recognizes that what he has just thought, what he has just described in the previous lines already gone and passed away. There is no more pleasure and cheerfulness in his surroundings. He sadly described this sugarless and disappointing realities, seems he does not believe everything has gone. Instead of mourning or grumbling, he prefer to stop grieving and start to believe that behind this events will appear glimmer of light for new and better life.
He now lives in the present time, like or not he has to accept the present circumstances. He learns to get used to with the change which is totally different with what it was but he does not want to be sad and wept over and over again. He tries to consider as a better gift from God and believes in God’s plan for him.
For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour 90 Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue.
Since he has experienced and learned from the experience about the nature he admires very much which is different with his youth experience that he thinks very ignorant. Although everything has gone that he said in previous line but still he can hear the voice of nature crying, looks like nature wants to share and show him its sorrow without revenging what human has done to it more cruelly and harsh.
He has learnt to hear what the nature trying to say but the sound he is listening to is not ordinary sound but it is extraordinary with the power it brings to calm and lull him asleep.
And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy 95 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; 100
The voice he heard make him feel something present in his mind, bother him who is enjoying the joy he felt. The incoming present lift his thought become higher things and more interesting it blends everything that is around it. This “something”lives everywhere; sun light, around the ocean, in the living air, on the blue sky, even in the mind of the man. He wants to tell us that this “something”lives in everything around us that we lived on – it can be plants, flowers, wood, mountain, river, soil and etc
instead in our mind, blood and mind. It exists in everything in nature, surrounding us, filling us, and binding the universe together.
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things.
In these lines, he defines “something”specifically by saying that it is a movement that gives spirit with its power can encourage thinking things – human, plants, animal, things and mind – to move or to act in appropriate way.
In these lines, the word “all”refers to the motion and spirit and it is repeated four times here which means that the spirit means something for him.
Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold 105 From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear,— both what they half create, And what perceive;
He believes that he himself is a part of nature, the presence – a motion and spirit - which came is the reasonable cause he said himself like that. He loves to see the green surroundings, the sound of gurgling water from mountain, friction of leaves among trees, cool breeze because it fresh, calm, inspire, cure, pleasure him of what he sees and hears. He