Sitting in my special place, waiting for the muse to strike, Robert began to sing of the lady who is sure. He transported me to a conversation I overheard two colleagues having about a student who compared William Wordsworth’s “Thoughts on Tintern Abbey” to Led Zep’s “Stairway to Heaven.” Never having read Mr. Wordsworth’s poem, I decided to see if the comparison held.
It did not. Perhaps the young man had been thinking that the appearance of hedgerows in each work made them similar. Perhaps the young man was stoned. I do owe it to him, however, for getting me to read the Wordsworth poem. I was transfixed by WW’s description of returning to the place where he had once been a passionate youth. This place, with its craggy hills overlooking the river Wye, held a special fascination for him. It reminded him of who he was, how he had changed, and, he hoped, showed the quality of his character today in contrast to his former self.
As I sat, rapped in poetical reverie, the dulcet tones of Neil Young came flowing through the room. I heard Mr. Young sing about his days in the north country, and how, as a young person, so many things had changed for him there. Like Wordsworth, ole Neil will go there in his mind from time to time to revisit the person he was and check in with who he is becoming. The memory of the place leaves him helpless. This, much more than the musings of Mr. Plant, is a song in the mold of Wordsworth.
This date with the muse happened on the day after I spent a good amount of time in the Valley of Love and Delight. Indeed, all my changes were there. And it makes me wonder, should one leave in order to get the perspective. If that place, which Wordsworth and Young clearly yearn for, is a place where one can linger, why not? With the people and the hills that I love right next door, is it artifice to stay away?