Featured Poem: The Tables Turned by William Wordsworth

We've spotted a few daffodils springing up around our HQ - whether there are quite enough to be deemed a 'host', we couldn't say, but they did put us in mind of hopeful days of Spring and the chance to spend more time out of doors. This week's Featured Poem, quite coincidentally penned by William Wordsworth, contemplates the merits of staying indoors and poring over books (of the academic variety, it would seem) as opposed to learning lessons from the world around us. Naturally, we would advise combining the two, but why not take a read and see which line of thinking you fall towards.

The Tables Turned

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 mellow
Through 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 wood
May 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 intellect
Mis-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 heart
That watches and receives.

William Wordsworth