Expostulation And Reply After Wordsworth Poem by Jonathan ROBIN

EXPOSTULATION AND REPLY AFTER WORDSWORTH
'Why, Rachel, on this online site,
thus for the length of five full years,
why, Rachel, archive, when your light
and dreams deserve three cheers?

Where is your Ph.D. well earned
now being well formed body, mind?
Down! downstream paddle, channel churned,
to Paris, Sorbonne find.

You look round on your Nottingham,
while reading Reading is too small,
while Oxenforde and Bridge on Cam,
slight fame may offer if at all! '

'One day near Sherwood Forest green,
saw sweet life vanished with the deer,
Good Robin's phantom moonlit seen,
one midnight did appear.

The inner eye beyond the sea
must list to voice for choice few hear;
our astral bodies feel they be,
blown to a fresh career.

More heed! Deem dreams of unseen Powers
impressed upon our minds may show
the way to active growth, joy's flowers
spurn passive wait, must grow..

The sober tenor of old ways,
their universal hustle, bustle,
seems too self-centered, time peels days
fresh challenge seek, mind muscle.

Ask no longer why, alone,
through contest answer's sought,
but act, abandon old grey stone,
spend time in play, ball caught...'

24 January 2010
Parody William Wordsworth 1770_1850 Expostulation and Reply

robi03_1960_robi03_0000 PWX_MXX
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
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 bequeathed
To Beings else forlorn and blind!
Up! up! and drink the spirit breathed
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 choose 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, '

William Wordsworth 1770_1850


Expostulation and Reply after Wordsworth poem © Jonathan Robin