The world is too much with us

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth’s sonnet “The World Is Too Much With Us” was written circa 1802 and first published in 1807 in Wordsworth’s collection “Poems, in Two Volumes”.

William Wordsworth was born on 7 April 1770 in Cockermouth, Cumberland, England, and he died on 23 April 1850 in Rydal, Westmorland, England, at the age of 80.

Wordsworth helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with his Lyrical Ballads, published jointly with Coleridge in 1798. He was Britain’s Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death, and his magnum opus is generally considered to be The Prelude, a semi-autobiographical poem of his early years that he revised and expanded a number of times.

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Posted: 1 November 2022
Word length: 104
Video length: 1:52

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.

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