Blog #9: Reflecting Upon, "This 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.

The first time I read this, I started out thinking I knew what was going on. By the time I reached the end of it, I had decided that I had no idea what was happening. My first thoughts were like, maybe this poem was about how the human race has all of these beautiful things within nature, and we are wasting our chances and abilities to take advantage of them and their grace. But then, I was thinking that perhaps it is about the beauty of the world, and how things could amaze us, though there are aspects of nature that setter is, that make us wish that the world were as we dream or think. Considering we do not live in the time of the ancient Greeks, nor it's mythology, I don't expect Proteus to burst out from the sea with his Tridant. Nor will we hear Triton blow his horn, especially since I have never heard of Proteus or Triton (at least not in relation to this piece of writing.)

I'm still a bit confused about what's going on in this poem. I've read it in silence and I've read it aloud. And neither time do I really catch the essence of what is trying to be presented to the reader. I will acknowledge the wonderful use of imagery. I imagine laying like flowers and I imagine (even though I do not know what he is supposed to look like) Proteus rising from the water, and Triton with his horn. It has just little detail, but it's just enough for me to know, or to see what is going on. Even though I feel lost while reading.