Summer has sprung, and I find myself enjoying the lull between terms and between projects. I’m waiting for the reviewers to finish with my book manuscript, awaiting a book in the mail that I’ve volunteered to review for a journal, and beginning to read and take notes toward a new piece of writing. In the meantime, lines from William Wordsworth’s “The Tables Turned” keep popping into my head:

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 lustre 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 linnet,

How sweet his music! on my life,

There’s more of wisdom in it.