ABSTRACT
Date of composition uncertain; perhaps November or December 1812 at Tanyrallt. Cameron (Esd Nbk 217–18) assigns the poem to summer 1812, endorsing Dowden, who suggests (Dowden Life i 288n.): ‘The reader cannot fail to note that this poem contains several reminiscences of Wordsworth’s ‘Tintern Abbey’, which it resembles in the general treatment of the blank verse … in passing through Chepstow, Shelley may have visited Tintern Abbey, and have read Wordsworth’s poem, and … this may have been written soon after reaching Lynmouth’. This dating is plausible. It is possible, however, that what influenced S. was not Tintern itself but the fact that Wordsworth’s poem marked a return from ‘the din / Of towns and cities’ (26–7) to a known landscape in company with one he loved–a return such as S. made with Harriet on about 16 November 1812, from his disenchanting visit to London (L i 331). Passing or visiting Valle Crucis Abbey near Llangollen, two miles off the London road, could have reminded S. of Wordsworth’s ‘Lines’. In further support of the later date: (a) the heavily stressed contrast between ‘the frigid intercourse / Of common souls’, the corrupting custom and cold forms of an unthinking world, and the ‘Warm, tranquil, spirit-healing’ communion with Harriet; (b) the image in lines 22–3, ‘that untainted seed / Which springeth here beneath such love as ours’, which suggests an awareness of Harriet’s pregnancy, which must have been apparent by November or December 1812; (c) the wintry imagery of lines 25–9; (d) the similarity of phrasing to ‘On Leaving London for Wales’ (see notes below); (e) S.’s use of lines 58–69 virtually unaltered in Q Mab, which argues for recent composition. Features such as the flood imagery of 58–63 and the ‘thirst for action’ (64) would suit Tremadoc equally as well as Lynmouth.
