The World is too much with us
The World is too much with us
Original Text
William Wordsworth, Poems in Two Volumes (1807). See The Manuscript of William Wordsworth's Poems, in Two Volumes (1807): A Facsimile (London: British Library, 1984). bib MASS (Massey College Library, Toronto).
1The world is too much with us; late and soon,
2Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
3Little we see in Nature that is ours;
4We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
5This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
6The winds that will be howling at all hours,
7And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
8For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
9It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
10A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
12Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
13Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
14Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
Notes
11] Cf. Spenser's Colin Clout's come Home againe, 283, "Yet seemed to be a goodly pleasant lea"; and line 245, "Triton, blowing loud his wreathed horne." Back to Line
RPO poem Editors
J. R. MacGillivray
RPO Edition
3RP 2.374.
Rhyme