"The Tables Turned" Quit your books...

The Tables Turned

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. . . .

Books! 'tis a dull and endless trifle:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music! on my life,
There's more of wisdom in it. . . .

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
Misshapes the beauteous 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.

• William Wordsworth

The Hypothetical Real

CS Lewis discussing the possibility of faith in a Creator God. and the mystery of man's desires:

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

It's A Short Winter...

IV.

The night is damp and warm and still,
And full of summer-dreams;
The buds are bursting at their will,
And soft the half moon gleams.

My soul is cool, as bathed within
By dews that silent weep;
Like child that has confessed his sin,
And now will go to sleep.

A childhood new, Lord, thou dost set,
Each season for a sign;
Lest, old in this world, we forget
That we are young in thine.

A child, Lord, make me ever more;
Let years fresh sonship bring,
Till, out of age's winter sore,
I pass into thy spring.

• George MacDonald, Section IV of "Songs of the Days and Nights" in The Disciple and Other Poems

Sometimes Evidence Can Only Be Grasped

"'Something of God...flows into us from the blue of the sky, the taste of honey, the delicious embrace of water whether cold or hot, and even from sleep itself.'"

• C. S. Lewis in “Scraps,” St. James' Magazine

Fresh Start

The Year's at the Spring

The year's at the spring,
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in his Heaven—
All's right with the world!

• Robert Browning