Remembrance after life
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, no 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! These lines are from the “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On the Banks of the Wye during a Tour on July 13, 1798,” a poem by William Wordsworth, a poet known as the poet of remembrance. He wrote this poem after visiting Tintern Abbey, with his sister, who was very close to him. This visit made him remember all the feelings he had five years before in that beautiful Abbey, and brought him to write this poem. T...