William Wordsworth, “The world is too much with us” #7

The World Is Too Much With Us

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

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.

When reading this poem I thought about the society we live in and how the author is trying to depict that we're not appreciating everything around us. The nature is avoided, we're always rushing with life that we miss the most beautiful things. Where the author says "For this, for everything, we are out of tune." is practically my favorite line in the entire poem. I feel like here he is saying that we're doing everything so wrong. Almost like strings when I play the cello, if I play the piece wrong and my notes are out of tune the beauty of the piece isn't present and I think that's exactly what the author is trying to show us. When the author also says "Little do we see in Nature that is ours." I think of this as we have the freedom to embrace something free but we don' t. In our world we're worried about the money, the clothes, the social class. We completely shut out everything free and unique around us. But it also made me think that we survive with the nature. Without it we would be dead...so why aren't we thankful for it? I find this poem so different because this doesn't talk about the love for an individual but the love for the world, the beautiful nature around us.