Compare and contrast “Tintern Abbey” and “Resolution and Independence.” Clearly set up the basis of your comparison: why are you comparing and contrasting these poems? Then provide a thesis that spells out what characteristics you will use to focus your analysis: language and imagery, speaker and characters, or themes.

There are many ways you could go with comparing and contrasting these two poems, but the one that jumps out at me is thematic.
The poems share many similarities in their message and how it is structured. Both start out with a joyous celebration of nature, both are concerned with memory and its power to solace, and both end with the contemplation of a particular individual—in the case of "Tintern Abbey," an ecstatic burst of praise on Wordsworth's part for his sister, and in the case of "Resolution," a more melancholic but uplifting contemplation of a poor old man gathering leeches.
So the structure of your comparison can be laid out as follows:
1. Each poem begins by celebrating the natural world. In the first part of each poem, you can easily find quotes to support this love of nature. In "Resolution," for example, you could use, "The sky rejoices in the morning's birth . . . The hare is running races in her mirth . . . ."
2. Each poem turns to a contemplation of memory: you should easily be able to find quotes about memory in each work.
3. Each poem focuses at the end on an individual.
However, within that basic framework of similarity or comparison, we can find differences. First, though each poem begins with a celebration of nature and memories of a boyhood love of nature, in "Resolution and Independence" these memories turn to worry and melancholy in way that Wordsworth has harder time combatting, while in "Tintern Abbey," he remains more upbeat—woes come, but nature is quickly a solace. Finally, when it comes the individuals discussed at the end, we also find a contrast: whereas Wordsworth is ecstatic in his joy in contemplating his sister, he takes a more sober look at the old man he encounters.
Having gathered some comparison quotes, it is time to gather contrast quotes. For example, in "Resolution," Wordsworth talks about the melancholy and dejection that seize him at certain times, writing, for example,

And fears and fancies thick upon me came;
Dim sadness—and blind thoughts, I knew not, nor could name.

You can find other quotes in this poem about sad thoughts.
In "Tintern," Wordsworth also has sad thoughts, but he is much more quickly solaced by thinking about nature. For example:


In darkness and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart—
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,
O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!

What Wordsworth is saying in the above quote is that when he feels joyless, he thinks about the Wye, a river that wanders through the woods near Tintern Abbey. When Wordsworth's "spirit" turns to thinking about this river, he feels better. This contemplation of nature leads him to spiritual thoughts that elevate him when he feels sad:


A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused


However, in "Resolution," these negative thoughts keep springing back. They are not so easily resolved as in "Tintern." For instance, much as he keeps trying to turn back to his love of nature, he thinks of the poet Chatterton, who died at seventeen. Over and over he returns to melancholy:

But there may come another day to me—

Solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty.

[. . .]



I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy,
The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride;

[. . .]

We Poets in our youth begin in gladness;
But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.

What snaps him out of it seeing the old man at the end. He attributes this to an act of God, which he calls a


peculiar grace,
A leading from above, a something given

Wordsworth then recounts his conversation with the man—you can gather the quotes. The man has a harsh life, so this is not an ecstatic conversation, but by the end of the poem, Wordsworth has drawn solace from the man's fortitude and "firm mind."
In contrast at the end of "Tintern Abbey," Wordsworth goes into an ecstatic state over his sister—you can find many quotes with exclamation points to support this. Here, he does not have a conversation with her, but informs as to how the memories of being at Tintern Abbey will provide her joy and solace in her later years. Here the poet turns to his sister and his focus is on her joy, whereas in "Resolution," the focus is on how the old man helps Wordsworth himself feel better. He will, he says, recall the memory of the old man and feel less dejected.

With all of this, you can come up with a thesis: the two poems (name them fully) are alike in talking about love of nature, memory, and an individual. They are different in that "Resolution" takes a much more melancholic turn. The ending of "Resolution," therefore, is more sober and less ecstatic than "Tintern," although in both poems, the solace of memories provides an uplifting finale.

That above could be the basis of your thesis: you will, of course, want to finesse the wording.
So you will state your thesis, talk about the three ways the poems are alike, supporting each point with quotes from both poems, then talk about how the poems are different, one more melancholy than the other, again supporting yourself with quotes from both poems.

Why is any of this important? Well, we all have different moods; one poem alone can't capture all the nuances of a life, but two can help us see different sides of the same poet.

I hope this gets you started!