Books and nature

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--------


Heh. Found this poem just now while I was surfing around Orchard Kino. Ok, this is what I do when I’m bored ok. Haha. Anyway, this is such a cool poem! This poem makes me feel like going on an around the world nature trip right away! At least there's someone who agrees with me that there's more to life than studying "barren leaves". XP

Hmmm, I dont know how come critics dont like this poem, well they probably bury their heads in books all their lives or are just not used to Wordsworth's change of style here. (Think stuff like Daffodils, which is very different from The Tables Turned) Well, I kinda like the casual, persuasive tone of this poem, especially this nonchalant attitude taken by the poet. Heh. I guess it kinda reflect my feelings towards school too. Not that I don’t care about my studies, but I feel that the way they are teaching things in my school are just too narrow minded and limited in scope with only the specific goal of getting everyone to score desirable grades in the end without actually knowing what you are doing. I also don’t like the way the education system here tries to force us to think only in what they want us to think, not allowing us to explore further or discuss about issues. You should just see the way they teach general paper here man. All I can say is, I have either got a very bad teacher or there’s something very wrong with the curriculum. And it’s not just about general paper…the other subjects are not much better. I guess the only subject I’m really interested in now is literature, for it allows you to explore on your own and make your own discoveries. XD

Hmmm. I think Wordsworth also made a good point in the seventh stanza.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:--
We murder to dissect.

I find the sentence “We murder to dissect” very freaky. I mean, the images that I get immediately is of humans catching stuff like insects or animals, dip them in some poison to kill them, before dissecting them just to observe them for scientific reasons. Yucks. This is so barbaric man. Come to think of it. I don’t know how come my sister loves dissecting things during her biology classes. >__< And I do have to agree that “Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things” It seems that Man, in our quest to know as much as possible, to develop to the best of our abilities, tends to neglect the other living things we happen to share our planet with, the flora and fauna of course. Ok, I think neglect is an understatement. It’s more like destroying them, giving them no chance to survive at all. Think of all those rainforests that are cut each year to make way for the humans, and the number of animals that are killed in the process, some getting closer and closer to the fate of the Dodo bird with each passing second. Gah. Sickening isn’t it. The beauty of our world is destroyed in the process, and now we see concrete jungles everywhere, and the air we breathe in filled with all kinds of gaseous poison.

Sometimes I think that people really have no idea what they are doing. And when they finally realize, it might be too late. Well, I can only hope that I wont be there to see the end. XD

So everyone, please follow Mr Wordsworth’s advice, shut those books now and start seeing for yourself the real world that our planet has to offer, not some dead but colourful images you see on processed wood bits----while you still can.

(Haha…I just realize that this is getting to be very practical criticism coupled with lots of irrelevant ramblings. Heh.)