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