The poet Wordsworth get’s a lot of love from Owen Barfield. He is probably quoted and admired more than anyone frequently than anyone else I’ve seen so far in his writings.<\/p>\n
…but perhaps the most brilliant, even epigrammatic, expression which has ever been given to the everlasting war between the unconscious, because creative, vital principle and the conscious, because destructive, calculating principle, is contained in four lines from a little peom of Wordsworth’s…<\/p>\n
-Owen Barfield, History in English Words (Reader p. 42)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Here is that peom Barfield is talking about, with the pertinent verse in bold. (It’s a good one!)<\/p>\n
The Tables Turned<\/strong>
\nby William Wordsworth<\/p>\nUp! up! my friend, and quit your books,
\nOr surely you’ll grow double.
\nUp! up! my friend, and clear your looks;
\nWhy all this toil and trouble. . . .<\/p>\nBooks! ’tis a dull and endless trifle:
\nCome, hear the woodland linnet,
\nHow sweet his music! on my life,
\nThere’s more of wisdom in it. . . .<\/p>\nOne impulse from a vernal wood
\nMay teach you more of man,
\nOf moral evil and of good,
\nThan all the sages can.<\/p>\nSweet is the lore which Nature brings;
\nOur meddling intellect
\nMisshapes the beauteous forms of things–
\nWe murder to dissect.<\/strong><\/p>\nEnough of Science and of Art,
\nClose up those barren leaves;
\nCome forth, and bring with you a heart
\nThat watches and receives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The poet Wordsworth get’s a lot of love from Owen Barfield. He is probably quoted and admired more than anyone frequently than anyone else I’ve seen so far in his writings. …but perhaps the most brilliant, even epigrammatic, expression which has ever been given to the everlasting war between the unconscious, because creative, vital principle … <\/p>\n