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| Our Cottage Last Year in the Snow August 2012 |
My heart is so full today... I am watching our cottage be packed up. I had to breathe deeply as I did, the contents of our small cottage hardly fit in the 20 foot container and we did have to leave a lot behind.
I looked over the surrounding fields, the soft beautiful place that has been our home for the last five and a half years...and I grieved. I can't write much tonight, but I have revisited a dearly beloved poem - one that I share as a gift with you on my last evening in South Africa.
The poem was written by a man named William Wordsworth in a place in England overlooking a place he had visited five years before, Tintern Abbey. Its full title, as given in Lyrical Ballads, is "Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour, July 13, 1798" - is as long as the thing - but I remembered it today for this reason:
Some places are the same as when we first saw them... We are the ones who have changed five years later. Nature's beauty - the love, the hope and the unexplained lift we get viewing it will always be our inheritance.
I have loved South Africa.
Five years have
past; five summers, with the length
Of five
long winters! and again I hear
These
waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
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 beauteous
forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a
landscape to a blind man's eye:
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,
With
tranquil restoration:--feelings too 30
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
Of
kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I
may have owed another gift,
Of aspect
more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which
the burthen of the mystery,
In which
the heavy and the weary weight
Of all
this unintelligible world, 40
Is
lightened:--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
Almost
suspended, we are laid asleep
In body,
and become a living 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.
If this
Be but a
vain belief, yet, oh! how oft-- 50
In
darkness and amid the many shapes
Of joyless
daylight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable,
and the fever of the world,
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!
And now,
with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many
recognitions dim and faint,
And
somewhat of a sad perplexity, 60
The
picture of the mind revives again:
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. And so I dare to hope,
Though
changed, no doubt, from what I was when first
I came
among these hills; when like a roe
I bounded
o'er the mountains, by the sides
Of the
deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever
nature led: more like a man 70
Flying
from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought
the thing he loved. For nature then
(The
coarser pleasures of my boyish days,
And their
glad animal movements all gone by)
To me was
all in all.--I cannot paint
What then
I was. 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
An
appetite; a feeling and a love, 80
That had
no need of a remoter charm,
By thought
supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed
from the eye.--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. For I have learned
To look on
nature, not as in the hour
Of
thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes 90
The still,
sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh
nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten
and subdue. 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 100
All
thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls
through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of
the meadows and the woods,
And
mountains; and of all that we behold
From this
green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear,--both what they half create,
And what
perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature
and the language of the sense,
The anchor
of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide,
the guardian of my heart, and soul
110
Of all my
moral being.
Nor perchance,
If I were
not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my
genial spirits to decay:
For thou
art with me here upon the banks
Of this
fair river; thou my dearest Friend,
My dear,
dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch
The
language of my former heart, and read
My former
pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy
wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold
in thee what I was once, 120
My dear,
dear Sister! 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
130
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, 140
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! Nor, perchance--
If I
should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice,
nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past
existence--wilt thou then forget
That on
the banks of this delightful stream 150
We stood
together; and that I, so long
A
worshipper of Nature, hither came
Unwearied
in that service: rather say
With
warmer love--oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier
love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after
many wanderings, many years
Of
absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this
green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear,
both for themselves and for thy sake!
William Wordsworth 1798
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