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Thursday – Thanksgiving
For this week’s poetry column in the Sewanee Mountain Messenger, my Thanksgiving poem was somewhat unusual. Most people don’t think of William Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” (full title below*) as a poem about a family coming together to express gratitude. But I think it works.
Wordsworth recounts revisiting a spot overlooking the banks of the Wye River after a five-year absence. While five years may not sound like a long time, in Wordsworth’s case it feels like a lifetime. That’s because, during those five years, he has witnessed the French Revolution, had an affair and a child with a French woman, seen the Revolution morph into a reign of terror, and fled back to England.
During his time away, he talks about how, when he needed peace, he would focus on memories of the Wye River prospect. He reports how
oft, in lonely rooms, and ‘mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet..
Now he’s back and this time he’s not alone. His “dear, dear sister” Dorothy is with him. “In thy voice,” he says,
I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes.
To which he adds, “Oh! yet a little while may I behold in thee what I was once.”
So now it’s time for his prayer of thanks. Knowing that his joy in the Wye River landscape is deep and genuine—after all, Nature never betrays “the heart that loved her”—he predicts this moment will lead “from joy to joy” for the rest of their lives.
And they will need this memory given that they will face many dark moments. Wordsworth lists them:
— evil tongues,
–rash judgments,
–the sneers of selfish men,
–greetings where no kindness is,
–the dreary intercourse of daily life.
And a little later:
— solitude,
–fear,
–pain,
–grief.
Luckily, the Wye River spot has now impressed them both with its quietness and beauty. Bolstered by lofty thoughts, the poet is confident that the bad times will never
prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.
Here’s the excerpt I shared with Messenger readers.
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.
But the poem doesn’t end here. To this point, Wordsworth has been focused more on the two of them. Now he imagines that Dorothy, in her future, will be able to recall this moment for her own needs. When she does so, she will remember standing here with her brother and recalling how much the spot meant to him as well as her—not only because of its beauty but because he stood there enjoying it with her.
Isn’t an important part of a Thanksgiving gathering the later memories we have of it? In our other gathering today, I will come together with friends that shared a Thanksgiving with my family 67 years ago. When I was growing up, three faculty families—the Bateses, the Degens, and the Goodsteins—would gather every year for a joint meal. When my mother died a year ago, the last of the older generation left us, but our Thanksgiving this year will have two additional generations. As always, we will be together in our house in the beautiful Sewanee woods.
As Wordsworth puts it earlier in the poem, “in this moment there is life and food for future years.”
Here’s how the poem ends:
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!
*Full title: “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798”