The World Is Too Much With Us
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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.
In lieu of the recent elections, I thought this quite fitting...BALANCE BE-GONE! Instead of trying to create more, we keep choosing to turn our back on it, laying waste "our powers"....in this sense Wordsworth pleas to man and nature living as one.
ReplyDelete"I'd rather be a Pagain suckled in a creed outworn"....having a sure foothold in a sure belief rather than dying the slow death of humankind.
Proteus- an early sea-god or god of rivers and oceanic bodies of water, one of several deities whom Homer calls the "Old Man of the Sea ".
Triton- a mythological Greek god, the messenger of the sea. He is the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite
References of Water, Air (wind), Land (flowers)
Imagine how disconnected Wordsworth would feel today. "For this, for everything, we are out of tune." This was written in 1803 according to Wikipedia in response the the industrial revolution. A critique on materialism and the loss of connection with nature. He would absolutely poop his pants if he witnessed how the industrial revolution has given birth to corporate control and a technological revolution. Will people as a whole ever return to this pagan lifestyle the poem fantasizes.
ReplyDeleteHow much does the industrial and technological revolutions impact the spreading of human rights? How many people would trade for a previous period's lifestyle. As much as I hate things about life today, I wouldn't want to take my chances in any other time period besides the future. And even that could be risky