The World is Too Much With Us

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 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.