Explore "The Tables Turned" by William Wordsworth on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks; / Why all this toil and trouble?
Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books, / Or surely you'll grow double.
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!
And he 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 / Misshapes the beauteous forms of things; / -We murder to dissect.
Enough of Science and of Art; / Close up these barren leaves; / Come forth, and bring with you a heart / That watches and receives.