ENGLISH LIT 101

My favorite groups of writers in English Lit were the Romantics: Wordsworth, Keats, Coleridge, Lord Byron, P.B Shelley, etc. I wrote my junior year term paper on Wordsworth. This is one of my favorite poems by him. I think of it when I am feeling overwhelmed - like now - and it sooths me.

"The World is Too Much With Us"

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; (1)

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, (2)

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus (3) rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton (4) blow his wreathed horn.