The World Is Too Much With Us

"Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

William Wordsworth (1806)

 

 

 

Memorizing poems is well worth the effort and is a habit I have observed in many well educated people. This poem is a great place to start. I suggest that many people do not commit poems to memory because 1) their prior education corrupted them into thinking that a poem was meant to be "analyzed"; 2) memorization requires effort and most people will do anything they can to avoid expending effort; and, 3) they suspect that they will not be the same person they were before if they memorize a poem and they are scared of becoming who they really are -- they have a status quo bias.

 

I very much enjoy this fellow's readings: