Welcome back to the Daily Poem, podcast from Goldberry Studios.

I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Wednesday, July 16th, 2025.

Today's poem is by William Wordsworth, and it's called The Tables Turned.

And while this poem as a whole is not maybe the first or even the third or fourth

wordsworth poem that comes to mind when you think of the great romantic poet, it does

contain one of his most famous lines.

And it's a good one.

I'll read the poem once, I'll offer a few comments

and read it one more time. The tables turned. Up, 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 luster 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 linnit, 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 mischapes the

beauty's 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.

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