SMP #11 Lines Written Upon a Yew Tree by William Wordsworth

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Great men can battle many things, jealousy, hate, scorn, dissolute tongues, but what about neglect? Can a great man or woman perservere in the face of utter lifelong neglect?

What would Einstein be like in old age, had no one taken his theory of relativity seriously? What about Dostoevsky's novels? Galileo famously was locked in a tower. At least he was not neglected!

Neglect it not scorn or hatred. It is to be ignored, unacknowledged, ghosted. This is something profoundly worse than fear or fury.

In this haunting poem, Wordsworth writes about a man he knew at Hawkshead school. The man was educated, a genius even. But something made him abscond from humanity. The only monument were some lines left upon a seat in a yew-tree which stands near the lake of Esthwaite on a desolate prt of the shore, yet commanding a beautiful prospect.

Listen in to hear these powerful lines.

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