The full title of this poem is:
Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798.
Can recollecting your past be done improperly? Is it an infallible process? If it is not infallible, what should we do about it? These are some of the themes we will see in Tintern Abbey by Wordsworth.
This blog post is dedicated to an audio/visual exploration of this great poem. I hope that it will serve as a useful guide and resource to understanding and gaining insights from this poem of reflection.
Above I have included a video and audio podcast to help you gain insights from this poem. The audio podcast can be found on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. The video can be found on Youtube or Facebook and it is embedded above.
For the Youtube video here are links to timestamped parts of the video:
My reading of the poem Tintern Abbey (40 minutes)
Here is the poem in its entirety. Beneath the full poem I've included my breakdown of the poem that I used for the podcast episode. I recommend you read the poem on your own at least once before going through my notes.
Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798
By William Wordsworth
Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.—Once again
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
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,
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
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,
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—
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,
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
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,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, not 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 recompense. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
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
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
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,
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
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! 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
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!
My Breakdown is actually of a later edition than the one I read for the show. There are a few slight changes to the text.
FIRST STANZA
1-4
Five years have passed; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur—Once again
Opening lines ripe with meaning:
5 summers have past; but they have felt like five long winters.” He has returned the Abbey, and the returning is of importance.
The river speakers to him again, he can hear their inland “murmur.”
5-7
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
Which on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
He is seeing the cliffs for the first time in five years. The “Wild secluded scene impress / thoughts of more deep seclusion.” Lovely line. He is saying that by being secluded (alone) once again to look on nature, he can be at peace to contemplate still further depths of seclusion.
Why would anyone who sits alone wish to think about being even more alone?
8-10
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These thoughts “connect the landscape with the quiet of the sky.”
Repose here is more than a normal lying down on your back. It is a complete state of rest and tranquility.
11-15
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which, at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Among the woods and copses lose themselves,
Nor, with their green and simple hue, disturb
The wild green landscape. Once again I see
While reposing, he views the following:
Cottage grounds and orchards that hav lost themselves due to their “unripe fruits,” which stand among the woods and copses (small group of trees).
This is an idyllic scene description. Perhaps here he is stressing that state of harmony with the orchards (a man manipulated entity) has blended with the wildness of untamed nature.
16-21
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms
Green to the very door; and wreathes of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees,
With some uncertain notice, as might seem,
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Again he “sees” hedge rows that are hardly hedge rows. Remember a hedge row implies manipulation by man of nature. But they are hardly hedge rows; they are more "the sportive wood run wild."
Here he praises the simplicity of pastoral life, at once recalling a literary tradition celebrating simple, rural lifestyles and values.
Picture an idyllic painting of cottages which have “green to the very door.”
21 - 22
Or of some hermit's cave, where by his fire
The hermit sits alone.
He barely notices those vagrant dwellers living in the woods. He also imagines the possibility of a hermit sitting in some cave against these “houseless woods.”
Here his fancy is really taking over. He has not indicated that he knows anything about the people living in the cottages. He just fancies a hermit lives here (creating an image from his mind or imagination rather than reality).
SECOND STANZA
23-25
Though absent long,
These forms of beauty have not been to me,
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
Beautiful and ripe with meaning.
“Though absent long, these forms of beauty have not been to me, as is a landscape to a blind man’s eye.”
Think Daffodils. Though he has been gone for five years, the earlier vision left an indelible impression on his imagination.
A landscape to a blindman is meaningless. He can see none of it and so it can make no impression on his mind.
26-31
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
More like the poem “daffodils” here. The tranquility and introspective nature of the beautiful sights, struck him often when in the bustling cities over the past five years. “But oft, in lonely rooms, and mid the din of towns and cities, I have owed to them, in Hours of weariness and sensations sweet…”
In this state, he feels it in the blood and heart too.
“And passing even into my purer mind with tranquil restoration.”
32-36
Of unremembered pleasure; such, perhaps,
As may have had no 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 him now returns the “unremembered pleasures” — pleasures that likely have had a strong influence on him — particularly “on that best portion of a good man’s life.”
*note in back of book on “who the Good Man MAY refer to: Possibly a reference to one of the Wye’s most famous residents, John Kyrle, “the man of Ross,” described by Pope in the Moral Essays, Epistle III: To Bathurst, II 249-74, and mentioned in many Tours of the Wye, include those of Gilpin, Warner and Joseph Hucks.*
But even without knowing WHO the Good Man is, the implication here is that the unremembered pleasures (of tranquility - that is an intellectual pleasure rather than a physical one) and that this pleasure, itself a result of the totality of the landscape was not irrelevant to the shaping of this Good Man’s should — by implication to any Good Man’s soul.
37 - 42
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
Is lighten'd:—that serene and blessed mood,
He thinks, oh! There must be yet another gift these sights provided, one “sublime.”
What is this gift?
It is a “blessed mood,” wherein the burden of all the weight of the mysterious world has been lightened.
In the occasional odd mood, I have felt a jealousy at those individuals most faithful to an almighty god in heaven. None of the strange unknown mystery irks them. No thought about unknown asteroids flung down to earth; if God decreed it then it shall be.
For a true believer, all the mysteries of the unknown are not to be feared, except through the medium of a Trust in God.
But what about someone secular? An atheist? Must the unknown be a terror to them?
In this quote from Wordsworth he expresses one “gift” of a proper contemplation of nature. For him, a proper “seeing” of nature gives one an intellectual tranquility, best understood with the concept “sublime.” Really, it is something even more than sublime, according to Wordsworth, it is a blessed mood.
This mood alleviates the heavy burden of a need to have every mystery answered, before tranquility can be experienced.
John Keats coined the term “negative capability,” to mean ones ability to experience chaos, ignorance or even evil, without being destroyed by it. Shakespeare could contemplate the most nefarious deeds of his evil characters, as well as the noble deeds of his heroes.
I call this a “comfort in chaos.” More broadly, it is being comfortable in not knowing something, coupled with a desire to continue exploring. This term negative capability applies to this passage by Wordsworth.
So often, people are so terrified In not knowing, that they leap to the nearest solution even if it turns out to be faulty.
We see this today constantly, as people turn random scientific studies into established, proven scientific facts.
Be weary of accepting answers to questions, you are ill equipped at present to properly ask.
43 - 47
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:
This “mood” does even more for us. In future moments, as our affections lead us in life, this serene and blessed mood will be with us until we are laid asleep in body and become a living soul.
For this last see Genesis 2:7:
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." ... He breathed the breath of life into the man's nostrils, and the man became a living person.”
Also see Milton, Paradise Lost vii. 528;
This said, he formd thee, Adam, thee O Man
Dust of the ground, and in thy nostrils breath'd [ 525 ]
The breath of Life; in his own Image hee
Created thee, in the Image of God
Express, and thou becam'st a living Soul.
and, viii 453-64.
As with an object that excels the sense,
Dazl'd and spent, sunk down, and sought repair
Of sleep, which instantly fell on me, call'd
By Nature as in aide, and clos'd mine eyes.
Mine eyes he clos'd, but op'n left the Cell [ 460 ]
Of Fancie my internal sight, by which
Abstract as in a transe methought I saw,
Though sleeping, where I lay, and saw the shape
Still glorious before whom awake I stood;
48 - 50
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.
Now that our mind (eye) has gone quiet from this harmony with nature, we gain a “deep power of joy.” And gain the ability to “see into the life of things.”
In early sci-fi authors like Shelley and Hawthorne worried not merely that man would “see” into the life of things, but they worried for men who wished to “control” the life of things. They believed in an actual veil that beyond which lay a realm of God or otherworldly powers, and that we humans were now attempting to grasp the immortal potion or the philosopher’s stone. This is the difference between science and art. Art wishes only to emulate and “see into the life of things,” whereas science (at the time) seemed obsessed with mastering and controlling “the life of things.”
STANZA 3
51 - 59
If this
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft,
In darkness, and amid the many shapes
Of joyless day-light; 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 through the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!
What if this were vain belief? … No… For how often in my darkest moments and life has grown no fruit, then, in those moments do I turn to you, why river (by the abbey). Again, he refers tot he river as a human “thou wanderer”
STANZA 4
60- 63
And now, with gleams of half-extinguish'd thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again:
Returning to the present, looking on Tintern abbey has given him “half extinguished thoughts.” There he is, having many recognitions of his past time at Tintern abbey. A picture begins to re-emerge in his mind.
64- 67
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
Standing there, he has a sense of his present pleasures, but, more, he has “pleasing thoughts that in this moment there I slide and food for future years.”
Meaning, he has the fuel for years to come.
68 - 74
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
Flying from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
Here he has changed from his earlier visit, where he was a young buck running FROM a dread rather than TOWARDS a love.
75 - 76
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,
And their glad animal movements all gone by,)
For a fuller accounting of his “Boyish days”
See Prelude i & ii
Nature, in his boyhood days was everything to him. He here continues the comparison to his animalistic existence as a boy, to his sober rational consciousness as a man. “Glad animals movements all gone by.”
77 - 87
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,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, or any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past,
Note to “cannot paint— Unlike Gilpin and other picturesque tourists at this, Wordsworth avoids the fashionable impulse to pictorialize the scene in his memory.
“I cannot paint what then I was.” So Wordsworth is unable or unwilling to draw a detail picture of this scene from his youth.
There are natural objects that become for Wordsworth “an appetite.”
* Waterfall
* Tall rock
* mountain
* Deep woods
This appetite turned into a feeling of LOVE. One supplied (like a military supply line, or the wood from a tree) by THOUGHT. This Feeling came only from the eye.
“Or any interest unborrowed from the eye.”
But the time of his youthful passions is gone.
87 - 89
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
The loss of the “dizzy” raptures has been compensated by other gifts. He will explain what those gifts are in future lines.
90 - 98
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
The still, sad music of humanity,
Not harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
The gift is “having learned a new way to look on nature.”
One, this gift allows him to look on nature and HEAR the sad song of humanity. Which chastens and subdues [him].
In his union with nature, he becomes ‘disturbed,’ by a ‘presence,’ that is the “joy of elevated thoughts.”
99 - 103
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. Therefore am I still
The joy is a “sense” sublime.
SUBLIME = [archaic] Elevate to a high degree of moral or spiritual purity or excellence.
Sublime DEFINITION: Of such excellence, grandeur or beauty as to inspire great admiration or awe.
Interfused = [literary] Join or mix two or more things together.
He ends by giving examples of the LOCATION or CAUsE of the sublime sense:
It is conjoined, mix by
* Light of settings SUNS (MULTIPLE!!!)
* Round ocean
* Living air
* Blue sky
* Mind of man
This mixed “power” sense, emotion is both motion and spirit.
This motion & Spirit “impels all thinking things.”
It impels the object of thought, that is the things in which we think about. *CRITICAL!*
And this conjoining process rolls through everything - man and object.
104 - 108
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 recognize
Due to this “sense sublime” he ‘therefore” remains a lover of the meadows and the woods.” And of ALL that we BEHOLD.”
“From this green earth; of all the mighty word / of eye and ear, both what they half-create, / and what perceive.”
See Young’s poem Night Thoughts, which recommends imaginative cooperation with the senses, ‘Take in, at once, the landscape of the world, / at a small Inlet, which a grain might close / and half create the wondrous world, they see’ (night XI, II 425 - 7) But see also Cowper, The Task iv, 290)
This is a pain to the senses in cooperation with imagination.
109 - 112
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
Of all my moral being.
I’m happy to recognize in nature and this language of my five senses, the thing that brings my imaginative floating down to the level of reality. This is the guardian, guide, and nurse of the soul and of his moral being.
FIFTH STANZA
113 - 117
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,
*read Psalms 23:4:
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
Even were I not educated in the way I have described above, I would not suffer because you are with me on this bank. (His dear friend,) or more broadly, one who shares his deepest values.
118 - 120
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
In you dear friend and in your voice do I catch (infect… spread) that interchange between my youthful passions in connection with nature. And I can once again experience those pleasures I once felt by gazing upon your ‘Wild Eyes.”
121 - 122
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear Sister! And this prayer I make,
Let me behold in you that which I once was, my dear, dear sister!
123 - 124
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
It is a prayer I give now; one that nature cannot betray, so long as I truly love her (Nature).
125 - 126
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
Nature has the ability to lead us from one Joy to the next.
127 - 135
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
The way in which she (nature) can lead us from one joy to the next is to “inform the mind that is within us,” with quietness and beauty, and to feed us lofty thoughts—thoughts that
— the evil things people say (evil tongues)
— Irrational judgments by others
— The looks (sneers) of selfish (bad) men give
Neither those things NOR: unkind greetings of the daily grind of life none of these things will win against us. Nor will it disturb our cheerful faith — a faith that everything we see is full of blessings.
136 - 143
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,
So, let the moonshine on you as you walk alone, let the misty mountains blow wind on you. Then, years from now when YOUR wild ecstasies are matured into “sober pleasures,” and your mind is a “mansion for all lovely forms,” then your memory will be a "dwelling place of all sweet sounds and harmonies”
144 - 147
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—
Thus if you ever experience loneliness, grief, pain, fear, then these thoughts will heal your soul. And may you remember me in tender joy and will. You remember my “exhortations.”
Exhortation - an address or communication emphatically urging someone to do something.
148 - 152
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
We stood together; and that I, so long
If by chance, if I am in a “place” where I can no longer hear your voice, nor “catch” thy wild eyes these gleams of past existence would you (or I) ever forget that we stood not he backs of this stream?
153 - 154
A worshipper of Nature, hither came
Unwearied in that service: rather say
That I, so long a worshipper of nature come here, once again, unwearied in my service to nature.
155 - 160
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!
No no! I mean not unwearied, but rather with “deeper zeal!” Of the “holier love.”
And you better not forget even after years of wandering and being separated that these words and cliffs and this green landscape “were to me more dear, both for themselves and for your sake.”
