183
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.
184
“ 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.
185
“ 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.”
