LINES

COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY, ON
REVISITING THE BANKS OF THE WYE DURING A TOUR,
13TH JULY 1798¹

lines 23-36

These beauteous forms
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 the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration:- 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.

[From "Wordsworth's Poems", Volume One, edited with an introduction by Philip Wayne,
Dent Everyman's Library 1907, page 32.]

This reference to William Wordsworth's poem does intend to draw on the romantic, magical quality of his "LINES". Kylesku, although a very different place than Tintern, nevertheless does tap that form which is the universal beauty within and without us that Wordsworth so fully describes. Kylesku Song is quite a simple poem, yet its humanity in the landscape is intentional, extending merely as song rather than essay, but with the same 'modern' connotations felt by Wordsworth. However, Kylesku Song is not only referencing a feeling here, but asking for comparison by apparently running closer to the sentimentals of nostalgia and religion (Amazing Grace) than Wordsworth. This simplification of Wordworth's 'essay' into the landscape exposes his courtship with mere sentiment through the pondering 'sentention' of his LINES of thought as feeling. But why complicate a simple song with such considerations?

Kylesku Song

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