The Best Part of Beauty Is That Which No Picture Can Express

Cyril C. House
English
18/02/2015

“The Best Part of Beauty Is That Which No Picture Can Express” (Francis Bacon)

       William Wordsworth presents a magnificent piece of romantic poetry Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey: On Revisiting the Banks of The Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798. In this poem the reader is shown that although time often wears heavily on a soul throughout the course of its life, time can also be a revitalizing force. The reader is permitted to journey alongside Wordsworth as he looks upon the River Wye/ Wye Valley and its associated scenery after having spent many years away from the same location. In contrast to the careless and fretful nature which characterize the speaker’s youth, as time passes he is overtaken with a certain revitalization of his now weary being; this passage of time reveals the sublimity of the world to him the speaker.

       Wordsworth has been away from the sight of the Wye for many years now and is glad to be back within the beautiful, natural sight.  He recounts his first experience of the beautiful visage, likening himself to a young buck “bound[ing] o’er the mountains, by the sides/ Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,/ Wherever nature led; more like a man/ Flying from something that he dreads, than one/ Who sought the thing he loved” (968). The thing he loved is known to be nature, and the River Wye/ Wye Valley is the epitomical idealization of this nature. It can be supposed that if nature is that which he loved and did not know until he came across it, then that which he dreads and is, as a result, fleeing from can be understood as not-nature. In other words, the monotonous grind of city life with the towering buildings of brick and concrete and not a fresh speck of air to breathe for miles around.

       Having been exposed to the ‘city life’ for such an extensive time since the Wye was last taken in, Wordsworth has become rather worn down and dreary in his outlook on the being of things. Although memories of the glorious Wye invigorate him as he drones along the day to day hustle of the English streets, he has now returned and is able to take in the magical sights of the River Wye/ Wye Valley first-hand and it has absolutely recharged him: “And now, with gleams of half-extinguish’d thought,/ With many recognitions dim and faint,/ And somewhat of a sad perplexity,/ The pictures of the mind revives again:/ While here I stand, not only with the sense/ Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts/ That in this moment is life and food/ For future years” (967). Wordsworth proposes a blissful source of sustenance not only for himself in future years, but also for his young sister who is along with him on this tour of his(/theirs). His sister’s presence ignites an even brighter spark in his old soul as he is able to look upon her as she gazes out at the beauty surrounding them and see the same life and love of the scene in her eyes as he had when first experiencing the Wye many years ago (969).

       Long ago Wordsworth looked out upon the Wye with the same youthful reverence as does now his sweetest sibling, and although he has not lost any amount of love and awe in any way whatsoever for the Wye (more specifically for nature itself), he cannot look upon it quite the same as all those years ago for his, now mature, perception of nature has evolved into something much more distinct. “For I have learned/ To look on nature, not as in the hour/ Of thoughtless youth . . . And I have felt/ A presence that disturbs me with the joy/ Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime/ Of something far more deeply interfused” (968). It is clear that the effect of nature no longer holds solely a brilliant and euphoric aesthetic claim, yet also now that it holds some sort of a deeper intellectual pleasure, perhaps a morally transcending sense of all things. Again at communion with nature Wordsworth is now able to see both physically and metaphorically how all aspects of life fit together to compliment and support each other and how without any of the aspects of life, or nature, the whole could not continue to exist so serenely: “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 thought,/ And rolls through all things” (968).

       Nature is an omnipotent force in Wordsworth’s life and has been so from the beginning, although after many years of worshipping her (nature) he is bestowed with an exceptionally new and vivid understanding of all the things which she represents and is a part of. Having started out as but a lad, loving nature for her more obvious niceties, as life continues and he is able to re-commune with nature again and again, both in the physical world as well as in his memory, Wordsworth becomes privy to the more subtle niceties of nature and it is through this revelation that he comes to understand the true sublimity of the world he inhabits.

Works Cited

"Francis Bacon." BrainyQuote.com. Xplore Inc, 2015. 17 February 2015.                                                    http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/f/francisbac117825.html

Wordsworth, William. “Lines Writtten a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey: On Revisiting the banks of        the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798.” Lisa Chalykoff et al. The Broadview Introduction to                Literature. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2013. 966-970. Print.