Reading William Blake's The Ni

             The worship of nature is a characteristic of the Romantics that is why it is no surprise that we read the voice in The Tables Turn'd telling someone to go out rather than stay inside the house and read books. It is a beautiful day for "[t]he sun . . . through all the green fields has spread [h]is first sweet evening yellow" and hence, a perfect occasion for observing nature in its pristine state and all its beauty and splendor. The narrator asks the reader why go through all the trouble of reading books as it is but "a dull and endless strife" when one can see aspects of nature for him/herself. Sometimes the reader's perception about things can be wrong with regard to how he/she imagines a particular bird or plant looks. The narrator continues: "clear your looks; why all this toil and trouble [!]" Why then insist on staying indoors when nature has "a world of ready wealth", waiting for us to see, hear, discover and experience for ourselves and see things as they are. One should then take advantage of his/her faculties while he/she still can and in the process, one is blessed with "[s]pontaneous wisdom breathed by health [t]ruth breathed by cheerfulness." In doing all of these, one gets to enjoy him/herself, while getting fit because going out of the house entails walking around.
             The poem mentions listening to the birds. Books can give numerous pages of description about them and anyone can read these. But all these concepts and ideas will remain abstract so that one feels that they are unreal, until the time one actually sees them. Seeing things of nature through books do not cause the right kind of appreciation that they deserve. It is only when these are right before one's eyes that one can actually enjoy the birds' song, be amazed at its ability to fly and migrate during winter, and mar
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Reading William Blake's The Ni. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 04:26, April 24, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/75462.html