"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-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 sucked 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 wreathed horn."
               William Wordsworth

The English Romantic poet William Wordsworth wrote this in 1802, yet it is so apropos in our consumer-fueled society.  "Getting and spending"?  Really?  In 1802???  This sounds like our world, one in which people are hurried, harried, and spending beyond their means.  Too many "must" have the current "toy" (boat, jet ski, smart tv, etc...), and they are working themselves into a frenzy to keep up with their neighbors, materially speaking.   

"Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away"

Everywhere I look in my town, there is construction.  Woods are being decimated, habitats destroyed----all in the name of "progress."   Oh, how I hate it!  We don't need another Waffle House or car wash on my little island; yet, fight "progress" we can not.

One day, I hope to leave all of this.  I long for the simple life---a piece of land and a small cabin.  I won't require much for just me and my cats.  I also want chickens and a garden.  I have been ridding my life of "stuff" for the last year, and that is first on my priority list when I retire this summer.  Simplification will be my word.

I suppose it is true that things you learn as a child sleep in the deep recesses of your mind, waiting for something to awaken the memory and cause it to bubble to the surface.  I was working on a project inspired by my Grandmother Pearl, and this poem's title kept resonating through my mind.  I am sure I read it either in Betty Linder's senior English class, or it was in a British Lit. class in college.  As I thought of Grandmother, worked on my project, and heard the annoying "boomdaboomdaboomboomboom" assaulting my ears, I longed for the simpler time Wordsworth was searching for in 1802.  May it come to pass for me.