Romantic poets represent the lost origin in many different ways. The idea of lost origin in William Wordsworth=s ATintern Abbey@ is about childhood memories as a time when his connection with the natural world is at its greatest. In Samuel Taylor Coleridge=s AFrost At Midnight,@ he speaks about his childhood as being deprive and unhappy. In John Keats= AOde on a Grecian Urn,@ the lost origin is questioning the actual story that lies behind the immobile urn. .
The lost origin in ATintern Abbey@ is about childhood memories in connection with natural beauty. Also, it shows that memory works with nature during childhood and it works upon the mind even in adulthood. The memory in adulthood is not the exact same memory during childhood, thus he looks for compensation of the loss through nature and human life. Wordsworth begins his poem specifically stating that AFive years have past; five summer, with the length of five long winter!@(1,2) which tells the reader that a certain time has past. He recalls his youth and feels a sense of unity when he=s walking through the woods and river. The last time he views this scene was five years ago and he=s taking full advantage to review the scene again. When he says A I cannot paint what then I was, (75, 76) it shows he's been changing and growing up. Also, he cannot go back and relive the experience again which shows the break between past and present. He later imagines himself as a youth when he turns around and looks at his sister. Furthermore, he knows that these experiences will provide both of them future memories when they walk through the woods again.
Coleridge=s AFrost At Midnight@ demonstrates a lost origin when he=s dreaming of his childhood memories. It shows that as a child, he didn't see the beauty of nature but feels a sense of alienation and deprivation. The poem begins with a visual scene of a silent ministry of the frost, the cry of the owl, and the sleeping infant.
