In "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey," Wordsworth speaks from an adult perspective as he returns to a site he has visited once before, remembers his feelings from five years before, and responds to the feelings evoked in him on this return visit. This is the central image of the poem, and it is evident that the scene creates strong emotions in the poet and makes him follow a train of thought that takes him through a number of emotional changes and that evokes a wide array of spiritual issues in his life. The intermingling of past and present serves as a symbolic link between the younger poet and the older, and the poem shows that one of the things we learn from nature is how to look within and seek the true meaning of our own souls. Wordsworth wrote this poem when he was 28 years of age. He begins by observing the wonders and beauties of nature and then moves on to consider his sister, Dorothy. The poem thus moves from contemplation of nature to contemplation of the significance of a human being--studying nature also brings human beings closer together, showing them what they share in common, including the world they can all observe and learn from if they will but see. The main issue in the poem becomes the importance of love, and nature evokes this because it represents love. Nature for Wordsworth is benign, a teacher that wants us to learn its lessons, a teacher that draws us into our own world and our own spirit and shows us our humanity. Nature is not separated from the human world--it is rather the origin of it.
Indeed, the primary lesson of "Tintern Abbey" is that human beings are related to the natural world. They can never escape it and should not try. They should rather embrace it, and the one who does embrace it will find that it is always with him or her:
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 t
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