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.
boon: a thing that is helpful or beneficial
Pagan: a person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main world religions.lea: an open area of grassy or arable land
forlorn: pitifully sad and abandoned or lonely
Proteus: in Greek mythology is an early sea-god or god of rivers
Triton: a God of the sea
