StoryTitle("caps", "The World Is Too Much With Us") ?> 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.
PoemStart() ?> PoemLine("L0", "", "The world is too much with us; late and soon,", "") ?> PoemLine("L2", "", "Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;", "") ?> PoemLine("L2", "", "Little we see in Nature that is ours.", "") ?> PoemLine("L0", "", "We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!", "") ?> PoemLine("L0", "", "This sea, that bares her bosom to the moon,", "") ?> PoemLine("L2", "", "The winds that will be howling at all hours,", "") ?> PoemLine("L2", "", "And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers—", "") ?> PoemLine("L0", "", "For this, for everything, we are out of tune;", "") ?> PoemLine("L0", "", "It moves us not. Great God! I'd rather be", "") ?> PoemLine("L2", "", "A pagan, suckled in a creed outworn,", "") ?> PoemLine("L0", "", "So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,", "") ?> PoemLine("L2", "", "Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;", "") ?> PoemLine("L0", "", "Have sight of Proteus, rising from the sea,", "") ?> PoemLine("L2", "", "Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.", "") ?>