The World is Too Much With Us

The World Is Too Much With Us

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

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, (born April 7, 1770, Cockermouth, Cumberland, England—died April 23, 1850, Rydal Mount, Westmorland), English poet whose Lyrical Ballads (1798), written with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped launch the English Romantic movement.


Explanation to the Poem
The great poet William Wordsworth is unhappy with the world. He says," the world is too much with us". Here the world means the world of materialism. People love the world of materialism more. They distance themselves from the world of nature and the world of beauty. Elements of nature can no longer  appeal to their hearts. They are more interested in hoarding money and wasting it lavishly. Thus  they waste their power in useless adventures of "getting and spending".

They could not see anything good in nature around them. In fact, the poet goes on to claim that men have sold their souls for money. They are more interested in the world of money and monetary things. This is really bad. The poet imagines a picture before his eyes. 

He imagines the sea which is standing with bare bosom in front of the moon and the moonlight which is falling upon the surface of the sea. The wind is shown to be roaring all the time. However, even these elements of nature are silent and passive like the sleeping flowers. These  beautiful elements of nature do not appeal to any man.

The poet is unhappy with this attitude of man. He wishes to be a pagan for a pagan had more respect for the world of nature than a Christian man could have. Like a pagan,  the poet decides to stand on a green patch and sees the roaring sea in front of him. He can see the great Greek god of rivers and oceanic bodies Proteus taking shape before his eyes and he can also hear the great Triton blow his wreathed horn.

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