1. EXPOSTULATION AND REPLY.
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"Why William, on that old grey stone,
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"Thus for the length of half a day,
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"Why William, sit you thus alone,
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"And dream your time away?
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"Where are your books? that light bequeath'd
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"To beings else forlorn and blind!
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"Up! Up! and drink the spirit breath'd
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"From dead men to their kind.
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"You look round on your mother earth,
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"As if she for no purpose bore you;
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"As if you were her first-born birth,
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"And none had lived before you!"
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One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake,
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When life was sweet I knew not why,
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To me my good friend Matthew spake,
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And thus I made reply.
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"The eye it cannot chuse but see,
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"We cannot bid the ear be still;
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"Our bodies feel, where'er they be,
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"Against, or with our will.
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"Nor less I deem that there are powers,
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"Which of themselves our minds impress,
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"That we can feed this mind of ours,
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"In a wise passiveness.
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"Think you, mid all this mighty sum
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"Of things for ever speaking,
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"That nothing of itself will come,
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"But we must still be seeking?
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"--Then ask not wherefore, here, alone,
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"I sit upon this old grey stone,
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