Tintern Abbey

Tintern Abbey is William Wordsworth’s meditative poem about revisiting the Wye landscape after an interval of years. Its full title locates the speaker a few miles above the abbey, and the poem’s attention falls chiefly on landscape, memory, and the changing quality of perception. Recollections of earlier visits have become a resource during absence. Addressing his sister Dorothy, the speaker joins personal reflection to affection and a hope for her future, giving continuity between past and present a human relationship through which to endure.