The Tables Turned BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
On April 7, 1770, William Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, Cumbria, England.Wordsworth’s most famous work, The Prelude (1850), is considered by many to be the crowning achievement of English romanticism.
For Wordsworth poetic composition was a primary mode of expression; prose was secondary. Wordsworth seems to have written prose mostly in order to find a structure for his poetic beliefs and political enthusiasms. Poetry, according to Wordsworth, should be written in “the real language of men,” is nevertheless “the spontaneous overflow of feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.”
The Tables TurnedBY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;Or surely you'll grow double:Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;Why all this toil and trouble?
The sun above the mountain's head,A freshening lustre mellowThrough all the long green fields has spread,His first sweet evening yellow.
Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:Come, hear the woodland linnet,How sweet his music! on my life,There's more of wisdom in it.
And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!He, too, is no mean preacher:Come forth into the light of things,Let Nature be your teacher.
She has a world of ready wealth,Our minds and hearts to bless—Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,Truth breathed by cheerfulness.
One impulse from a vernal woodMay teach you more of man,Of moral evil and of good,Than all the sages can.
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;Our meddling intellectMis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:—We murder to dissect.
Enough of Science and of Art;Close up those barren leaves;Come forth, and bring with you a heartThat watches and receives.
For Wordsworth poetic composition was a primary mode of expression; prose was secondary. Wordsworth seems to have written prose mostly in order to find a structure for his poetic beliefs and political enthusiasms. Poetry, according to Wordsworth, should be written in “the real language of men,” is nevertheless “the spontaneous overflow of feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.”The Tables TurnedBY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;Or surely you'll grow double:Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;Why all this toil and trouble?
The sun above the mountain's head,A freshening lustre mellowThrough all the long green fields has spread,His first sweet evening yellow.
Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:Come, hear the woodland linnet,How sweet his music! on my life,There's more of wisdom in it.
And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!He, too, is no mean preacher:Come forth into the light of things,Let Nature be your teacher.
She has a world of ready wealth,Our minds and hearts to bless—Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,Truth breathed by cheerfulness.
One impulse from a vernal woodMay teach you more of man,Of moral evil and of good,Than all the sages can.
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;Our meddling intellectMis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:—We murder to dissect.
Enough of Science and of Art;Close up those barren leaves;Come forth, and bring with you a heartThat watches and receives.
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