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! 't is 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 mind 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

O

TO THE CUCKOO

BLITHE New-comer! I have heard,

I hear thee and rejoice.

O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,

Or but a wandering Voice?

While I am lying on the grass

Thy twofold shout I hear,
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off, and near.

Though babbling only to the Vale
Of sunshine and of flowers,
Thou bringest unto me a tale
Of visionary hours.

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!

Even yet thou art to me

No bird, but an invisible thing,

A voice, a mystery;

The same whom in my school-boy days
I listened to; that Cry

Which made me look a thousand ways
In bush, and tree, and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove

Through woods and on the green; And thou wert still a hope, a love; Still longed for, never seen.

And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.

O blessed Bird! the earth we pace
Again appears to be

An unsubstantial, faery place,

That is fit home for Thee!

William Wordsworth

I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD

WANDERED lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and
hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed and gazed — but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth

WA

WARBLE FOR LILAC-TIME

ARBLE me now for joy of Lilac-time, Sort me, O tongue and lips, for Nature's sake, and sweet life's sake and death's the same as life's,

Souvenirs of earliest summer

the first berries;

birds' eggs, and

Gather the welcome signs, (as children, with pebbles, or stringing shells;)

Put in April and May-the hylas croaking in the ponds the elastic air,

Bees, butterflies, the sparrow with its simple notes,

Blue-bird, and darting swallow nor forget the high-hole flashing his golden wings,

The tranquil sunny haze, the clinging smoke, the

vapor,

Spiritual, airy insects, humming on gossamer wings,

Shimmer of waters, with fish in them—the cerulean above;

All that is jocund and sparkling - the brooks running,

The maple woods, the crisp February days, and the sugar-making;

The robin where he hops, bright-eyed, brownbreasted,

With musical clear call at sunrise, and again at sunset,

Or flitting among the trees of the apple-orchard, building the nest of his mate;

The melted snow of March- the willow sending

forth its yellow-green sprouts;

- For spring-time is here! the summer is here! and what is this in it and from it?

Thou, Soul, unloosen'd—the restlessness after I know not what;

'Come! let us lag here no longer let us be up and away!

O for another world! O if one could fly like a bird!

O to escape-to sail forth as in a ship!

To glide with thee, O Soul, o'er all, in all, as a ship o'er the waters!

Gathering these hints, these preludes - the blue sky, the grass, the morning drops of dew;

(With additional songs every spring will I now strike up additional songs,

Nor ever again forget, these tender days, the chants of Death as well as Life;)

The lilac-scent, the bushes, and the dark green, heart-shaped leaves,

Wood violets, the little delicate pale blossoms called innocence,

Samples and sorts not for themselves, but for their atmosphere,

To tally, drench'd with them, tested by them, Cities and artificial life, and all their sights and

scenes,

My mind henceforth, and all its meditations — my recitatives,