The 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 wreathed horn.

Is he saying that the sea and wind as they are are not enough? Or is he saying that people are too caught up in acquiring goods to notice even them? I think the former because he isn't saying they aren't being noticed, but that they no longer move us. Greed has deadened our hearts. He posits that naturalistic paganism is better than heart-killing wealth procurement. That giants appearing, sounding out of the depths is what it would take to resurrect the heart. This would produce a pounding heart, but isn't this a call for excitement? Something awesomely fearsome needs to trump wealth, which has grown stale, to revitalize man? No, a return to paganism is not what we need, though it seems many find it superior to materialism. I heard an Orthodox lecturer say one time that America is returning to paganism in this "post-Christian" world. I'm not sure we're "post-Christian", but we're certainly not shining as brightly as we should.

I don't think the sea and wind need to become more exciting than the way he first describes them. If one is bored looking, feeling, and listening to them, there is a sickness of soul all right. It could be greed, despair or some other besetting sin. Something else is howling louder than the wind, and we must rise up like Proteus to silence it.

(poem from About.com's Classic Poem Daily.)