Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.djvu/635

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535. 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'd 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.


536. 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
    Apparell'd 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.