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;
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 wreathed horn.
William Wordsworth (1807)
I can appreciate Wordsworth's yearning to be overcome by a wonder and awe of the world greater than that allowed to us in this modern, cerebral, and sardonic world. Not for us the ecstasies and the despairs of ancient peoples. Probably for the better, but still...
What about those polls showing that citizens in first world countries are less happy with life than those in less developed ones. How about the fact that so many people take anti-depressants, more for ennui and daily stress than for a true despair of not making it through the latest famine or flood. Is something missing from our modern lives? Wordsworth thought so.
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