Yes, it's true, with the return of the school year so, too, returns Poetry Friday at Reassigned Time. Because I'm teaching a lot of poetry this semester, I've decided to post things that I'm teaching, but this may change if I get sick of it. So for today, I'm not posting an entire poem, but just some of my favorite lines from Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey.
....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 they 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 they portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations!....
- lines 134-146
Say what you will about Wordsworth (and I can and have said plenty) there moments where his poetry is just gorgeous.
12 years ago
2 comments:
I didn't begin to appreciate Tintern Abbey until I was in a GRE study group, and one of the other students loved it, and taught me to begin to get it. Then teaching it brought me around to get it to really work for me.
It's a really hard poem, though, and I don't find Wordsworth sympatico much, I'm afraid.
I'm not a huge fan of Wordsworth myself, but I've grown to appreciate him through teaching him, too. Something about having to make it work for other people somehow makes WW work for me....
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