The World Is Too Much With Us by William Wordsworth

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend April 27, 2014   The World Is Too Much With Us   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.              This poem is in the public domain. About This Poem   “The World Is Too Much With Us” is a Petrarchan sonnet and was published in Poems, in Two Volumes (1807).   William Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, Cumbria, England on April 7, 1770. His most famous work, The Prelude (1850), is considered to be one of the most important achievements of English Romanticism. Poetry by Wordsworth   The Major Works: Including The Prelude (Oxford University Press, 2008) "The Unknown Citizen" by W. H. Auden "Po' Boy Blues" by Langston Hughes "Testament" by Carl Sandburg Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit poets.org   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038