THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US

by: William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

      HE 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.

'The World is too Much with Us' is reprinted from English Poems. Ed. Edward Chauncey Baldwin. New York: American Book Company, 1908.

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