15 October 2002
“A Sense Sublime”: From Contemplation to Community in Wordsworth’s Lines
By Jason Preu
“...for a people cannot recover the sentiments of their youth, any more than a man can return to the innocent tastes of childhood: such things may be regretted, but they cannot be renewed. They must go forward, and accelerate the union of private with public interests...”
- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Wordsworth’s Lines (1798) is a prime example of Romantic literature and a fine representation of Wordsworth’s poetic goals as set forth in his Preface to Lyrical Ballads. The language is rather simple and I can think of few other poems that express so clearly such a “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” The poem’s themes are legion and while some stand out more prominently than others, the subtler among them may be often overlooked. One such overlooked theme is the focus on social relations that appears to form during the poem’s final stanza. My hope in this paper is to trace the poetic voice (henceforth referred to as “narrator”) as it moves from a passive, contemplative state to a more active, social one. It seems that as the poem presents its more prominent themes: the passing of time, self-reflection and memory, and Nature’s ability to provide recompense, the action of the final stanza is a result of the narrator’s decision of how to best be “in” the world after experiencing the fourth stanza’s sublime vision of reality.
The poem wastes no time in presenting one of its many themes with the first stanza’s repetition of the word “time”. This stanza also establishes a strong narrative voice due to the prose-like quality of the verse. Establishing such a voice is important if the reader is to view the action in the final stanza as an actual possibility, not just mere abstraction in verse. This stanza is also rather rich in sensory details – details that underscore another major theme: sense experience. The narrator, and subsequently the reader, “hears” the “softland inland murmer” (4) of water and “sees steep and lofty cliffs” (5). Without wasting any lines, another theme is introduced in this first stanza; that of the psychological healing power of seclusion and introspection. As the narrator begins to inwardly reflect, the language is a subtle reminder of his ignorance at this point. While it seems obvious that the narrator is older and wiser than the past self he is reflecting upon, words such as “dark”, “unripe”, and “green” suggest he yet still lacks something crucial to the maturation process. What that crucial something is seems to be the impetus to move out of this introspective state towards a state whereby the narrator is able to act more fully in his world, perhaps sharing that which he has learned during his meditations. Hence, at stanza’s close, the poem gives us the image of the Hermit. These two lines of the Hermit are all we see of him – the poem does not return to this image. Rather, it seems to use the Hermit as a symbol for the act of self-reflection. Additionally, until the final stanza, the poem may possibly be read as the Hermit in reflection. Only when the last stanza reveals to the reader that the narrator is at the scene with his sister does the poem move outward to a situation wherein the narrator chooses to share his potential recipe for tranquility – an engaged, public action as opposed to a more private, introverted one – and the Hermit is left in the woods.
The second stanza shows what the narrator takes from Nature – how She is his refuge even during times of great tumult. At times, reflecting upon her “beauteous form”, nature’s power, combined with the power of reflection, generates
…feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love. (30-35)
The suggestion here appears to be that Nature exerts an influence from afar when a person chooses to remember such scenes of natural beauty. This influence is capable of bestowing upon a person the genuine happiness that is akin to happiness garnered from simply acting with care. It is important to notice that these “unremembered” pleasures, however subtle, come from action – not contemplation.
It isn’t only this feeling of pleasure and sweet repose that the narrator is thankful to Nature for. There is also an “aspect more sublime…In which the beauty and the weary weight / Of all this unintelligible world, / Is lightened” (37-41). Nature here is shown to provide a buffer between the narrator and all the chaos inherent in existence. Further, in the state of introspection upon Nature and Self, one may be afforded a transcendence of the body. At its most beatific, contemplation upon Nature may cause one to see “with an eye made quiet by the power / Of harmony, and the deep power of joy”, perhaps allowing us to “see into the life of things” (47-49). The allusion to Eastern philosophies is here unmistakable. The attraction to an idea of one-ness and dissolution of self echoes Buddhist, Hindu, and Taoist doctrine with special attention being paid to the act of quietness. A body made quiet, still, and subject to self-examination gives way (ideally) to a state of peace and sense of connection with all life. The last lines of this stanza seem important to this process as they present a tripod of “harmony”, “joy”, and “life”, upon which one might come to rest in genuine enlightenment.
The fourth stanza deals with memory and leads by moving the reader from the present towards a future but neglects to dwell for long in that future. Instead, the verse again turns to the wilderness scene in reflection, a much more melancholy reflection that now recognizes the folly of following natural whims to the exclusion of all else. The pleasures affected by Nature in one’s youth, the poem seems to say, are purely sensual and repeatedly fleeting. There is no sign of reflection going on the youth’s mind. Nature was a drug to the youthful narrator that when removed caused a withdrawal so acute he laments that the missing natural scenes, “haunted me like a passion” (76). Further in the stanza the language again reflects only sensual desire as the narrator explains that, “Their [natural scenes] colors and their forms, were then to me / An appetite; a feeling and a love” (79-80). Indeed, for the youthful mind there is no “interest / Unborrowed from the eye” (83). While one cannot but regret the loss of such intensity in feelings, the mature voice of the present expresses what he considers to be the payoff for such a loss:
…And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. (94-102)
This metaphysical insight expands and nuances the sentiment expressed at the close of the second stanza by making explicit an urge to dissolve any boundaries between the within and the without. What the narrator takes from the scene is not pure passion that, like Chinese food, leaves you hungering for more no sooner than it is removed. Rather, what he takes is a lasting insight that there is nothing to which he is not intricately connected with. This rather ecological ontology and sense of interconnectedness is what the mature voice now relishes. It is above and beyond the realm of mere physicality. Furthermore, for the narrator, such a state should be steadfastly sought because (speaking in language often reserved for discussion of God) the narrator sees Nature as his moral compass. Without Her guidance there can be no objective moral standards to measure up to.
It would be a different poem indeed if not for the fifth, final decision of the narrator to relate his experience to another human. It is the poet’s willingness to share with his kin the importance of Nature that allows for completion the cycle of movement established throughout the poem. This stanza describes the poet’s move to act out. The stanza initially shows a flexible use of the word “Friend”. Having just described a mystical union of man with his environment it is pleasantly unclear at first who this “Friend” is. Is it the sublime sense, Nature, or something/one more particular? As it turns out, the friend is designated “Sister” (still ringing with connotations of Nature worship) and the fruit of the enlightened state is borne. The narrator, in this last stanza, appears to be attempting to insure that his aesthetic/spiritual experience does not become locked away and isolated within him. Rather, he desires to spread this ecstatic feeling to another person. There seems to be a shift toward a more communal language in this final stanza that is absent from those prior. Such verses as, “for she can so inform / The mind that is within us” (125-126), “shall e’er prevail against us, or disturb / Our cheerful faith, that which we behold” (132-133) [italics added] focus on a collective change of consciousness as opposed to the earlier, singular, isolated experience of the narrator. The language reflects a cycle of first seeing the many as one then coming round to seeing the one as many. As a result of having traveled this circular path, there seems to emanate from the narrator a desire for communication, connection, and interaction in the social sphere, a desire for a good greater the singular, self-improvement.
Wordsworth’s poem provides for world-weary humans a guide to being better involved with life. [I’ve no doubt that Wordsworth himself would smile to read that.] Look, however, at the movement of the poem’s human subject and which I have just outlined. Starting with a look at the world him, the narrator begins to reflect on how Nature has provided sanctuary for him in the past. This in turn leads the narrator to further reflection upon Nature’s influence throughout the entire span of his life. In this reflective state the narrator voices a mature realization regarding his relationship to all that exists outside of him. At this point, the narrator could, in his blissful state, simply sigh happily and keep to himself. Instead, there is a final stanza, a final movement, an action – a reaching out by the narrator towards another human being for the sake of sharing some common experience. The end result appears to be a hope for the mutual realization of that “sense sublime” and the faith that such an experience is of penultimate importance to the human sphere.
Works Cited
Abrams, M.H., gen. ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Seventh Edition. Volume 2. New York: Norton, 2000. All quotations from Wordsworth’s works are taken from this edition.