Expostulation and Reply

"Why William, on that old grey stone
Thus for the length of half a day
Why William, sit you thus alone
And dream your time away?

"Where are your books? that light bequeath'd
To beings else forlorn and blind!
Up! Up! and drink the spirit breath'd
From dead men to their kind

You look round on your mother earth
As if she for no purpose bore you;
As if you were her first-born birth
And none had lived before you!"

One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake
When life was sweet I knew not why
To me my good friend Matthew spake
And thus I made reply

"The eye it cannot chuse but see
We cannot bid the ear be still;
Our bodies feel, where'er they be
Against, or with our will

"Nor less I deem that there are powers
Which of themselves our minds impress
That we can feed this mind of ours
In a wise passiveness

"Think you, mid all this mighty sum
Of things for ever speaking
That nothing of itself will come
But we must still be seeking?

"--Then ask not wherefore, here, alone
Conversing as I may
I sit upon this old grey stone
And dream my time away."