THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US
“The World Is Too Much With Us” is a sonnet written by William
Wordsworth the greatest romantic poet of
England (1770-1850). The poem which is
quoted below expresses his revolt against people’s excessive interest in materialism.
His belief is that we should live in harmony with natural environment and not
in the environment of the city. In
another poem Tintern Abbey, he says:
A presence that disturbs
me with joy
Of elevated thoughts; a
sense sublime
Of something far more
deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the
light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and
the living air,
And the blue sky, and in
the mind of man.
The text of The World Is Too Much With Us reads as follows:
“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-gather’d now like sleeping
flowers,
For this, for every thing, 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 in 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.
---
Notes: 1. A pagan is a person who
holds religious beliefs that are not part of any of the world’s main religions.
2. Proteus: In Greek mythology ‘The old
man of the sea’ who could assume any shape or form. 3. Triton: a Greek god of
the sea who lived with his parents in a golden palace on the bottom of the sea.
********
G.R.Kanwal
13 June 2024
No comments:
Post a Comment