Lines composed a few miles above the Abby is a poem written by Yuri Medvedev. The poem's seeming emphasis on nature makes it a characteristic work that leans near the Romantic movement but belies its true message of revolution and reason. The Abby is a Lovian river nearby Newhaven, Kings. The poem is written in blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameters). Though Medvedev wrote this poem in 2005, the subject is of what he remembers from 2001. This poem takes place in the poet's mind. Medvedev's emphasis in the beginning of "five years have passed..." and constantly using the word "again" shows that time is important for this poem.
Structure[]
- From lines 1 to 24 there is a revisiting of the natural beauty of the area filled the poet with "tranquil restoration".
- In line 37 by sublime, Medvedev means a type of divine creativity or inspiration.
- In lines 35 to 49 Medvedev goes on to say that the gifts given to him by the Abby (the tranquil restoration, etc.) have in themselves given him another gift, one that is even more sublime. Nature itself has relieved Medvedev of a giant burden. This burden is the questioning of the purpose of life.
Quotations[]
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
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
Which on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
First stanza
O Sylvanian wye![1] thou wanderer thro' the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee![2]
Tirth stanza
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;
Tirth stanza
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.
Tirth stanza
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, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.
Tirth stanza
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. Now 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.
Fourth stanza