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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Verse  »  535. The World

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

William Wordsworth. 1770–1850

535. The World

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-gather’d 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.