Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume V. Nature. 1904. | | | | I. Nature’s Influence | | “The world is too much with us” | | William Wordsworth (1770–1850) |
| | Sonnet
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; | 5 |
| 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, | 10 |
| 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. | | | | |
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