This famous poem, written in 1807, needs little in the way of introduction. Wordsworth’s anguish over the lost connection between humanity and nature is expressed in clear and forceful terms: ‘We have given our hearts away’ and for what? Mere ‘getting and spending’:
The world is too much with us
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 wreathed horn.
By William Wordsworth (1807)
Posted by Chris Routledge