Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/658

 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

549 The World

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 j d now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune, It moves us not. Great God' Pd 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.

��550 Ode

Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight,

To me did seem ApparelPd in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore, Turn wheresoe'er I may,

By night or day,

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

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