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.

This world is too much with us: fairly soon working and shopping drain our capital, and show us almost nothing natural; our soul is thrown away, a sordid boon. That flood which flaunts its bosom, moon to moon, that wind which howls and howls, continual: all’s a sad bloom, shut down and dropsical for our disastrous choirs that flatly croon, lacking all passion. Think of this, good Lord: brought up a pagan in a faith outworn, what might I look at, on this dainty sward! Such sights and sounds, I couldn’t stay forlorn: a zoomorph, that zooms Apollo–ward, a Triton, tooting on his wrack–fraught horn.