Commentary

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 its bosom to the moon,
These 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 wreathed horn.

By William Wordsworth

*

". . .The angels keep their ancient places--
Turn but a stone and start a wing!
'Tis ye, 'tis your estrangèd faces,
That miss the many-splendored thing.

But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)
Cry--and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.

Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,
Cry--clinging Heaven by the hems;
And lo, Christ walking on the water,
Not of Genesareth, but Thames!"

From "In No Strange Land," by Francis Thompson