Poems That Every Child Should Know/The World Is Too Much With Us
The World Is Too Much With Us.
"The World Is Too Much With Us," by Wordsworth (1770-1850), is perhaps the greatest sonnet ever written. It is true that "the eyes of the soul" are blinded by a surfeit of worldly "goods." "I went to the Lake District" (England), said John Burroughs "to see what kind of a country could produce a Wordsworth." Of course he found simple houses, simple people, barren moors, heather-clad mountains, wild flowers, calm lakes, plain, rugged simplicity.
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours.
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This sea, that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers—
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I'd rather be
A pagan, suckled in a creed outworn,
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus, rising from the sea,
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.