Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
William Wordsworth. 17701850535. The World
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; | 5 |
The winds that will be howling at all hours, | |
And are up-gather’d 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; | 10 |
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. |