Poem 1

title

The Tables Turned

author

William Wordsworth (1798)

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Up! up! my Friend and quit your books;

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Or surely you’ll grow double:

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Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;

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Why all this toil and trouble?

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The sun above the mountain’s head,

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A freshening lustre mellow

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Through all the long green fields has spread,

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His first sweet evening yellow.

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Books! ‘tis a dull and endless strife:

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Come, hear the woodland linnet,

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How sweet his music! on my life,

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There’s more wisdom in it.

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And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!

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He, too, is no mean preacher:

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Come forth into the light of things,

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Let Nature be your teacher.

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She has a world of ready wealth,

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Our minds and hearts to bless-

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Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,

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Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

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One impulse from a vernal wood

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May teach you more of a man,

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Of moral evil and of good,

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Than all the sages can.

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Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;

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Our meddling intellect

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Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:-

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We murder to dissect.

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Enough of Science and of Art;

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Close up those barren leaves;

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Come forth, and bring with you a heart

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That watches and receives.