“The world is too much with us” is a sonnet by William Wordsworth, published in 1807, is one of the central figures of the English Romantic movement. The poem laments the withering connection between humankind and nature, blaming industrial society for replacing that connection with material pursuits. Wordsworth wrote the poem during the First Industrial Revolution, a period of technological and mechanical innovation spanning the mid 18th to early 19th centuries that thoroughly transformed British life.
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The Full Text of “The World Is Too Much With Us”
1The world is too much with us; late and soon,
2Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
3Little we see in Nature that is ours;
4We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
5This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
6The winds that will be howling at all hours,
7And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
8For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
9It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
10A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
11So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
12Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
13Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
14Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
The Full Text of “The World Is Too Much With Us”
1The world is too much with us; late and soon,
2Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
3Little we see in Nature that is ours;
4We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
5This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
6The winds that will be howling at all hours,
7And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
8For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
9It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
10A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
11So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
12Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
13Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
14Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
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“The World Is Too Much With Us” Summary
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“The World Is Too Much With Us” Themes
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Nature, Materialism, and Loss
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The Individual vs. Society
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The World Is Too Much With Us”
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Lines 1-2
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;— -
Line 3
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
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Line 4
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
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Lines 5-7
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; -
Lines 8-9
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. -
Lines 9-10
Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; -
Lines 11-12
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; -
Lines 13-14
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
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“The World Is Too Much With Us” Symbols
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Flowers
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“The World Is Too Much With Us” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Caesura
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End-Stopped Line
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Metonymy
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Personification
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Simile
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Metaphor
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Apostrophe
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Anaphora
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Assonance
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Alliteration
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Consonance
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“The World Is Too Much With Us” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Lay waste
- Sordid
- Boon
- Bosom
- Up-gathered
- Pagan
- Suckled
- Creed outworn
- Lea
- Forlorn
- Proteus and Triton
- Wreathèd
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The World Is Too Much With Us”
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Form
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Meter
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Rhyme Scheme
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“The World Is Too Much With Us” Speaker
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“The World Is Too Much With Us” Setting
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Literary and Historical Context of “The World Is Too Much With Us”
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More “The World Is Too Much With Us” Resources
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External Resources
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William Wordsworth’s Preface to Lyrical Ballads — An essay in which Wordsworth assesses the state of English poetry, explains where poetic language comes from, and lists the differences between poetry and prose.
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Video Explanation of “The world is too much with us” — Rebecca Balcárcel, an associate professor of English at Tarrant County College, reads and analyzes the poem line-by-line.
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"London" by William Blake — A LitCharts guide to a poem by Wordsworth's contemporary William Blake that similarly laments the nature of urban life at the turn of the 19th century.
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A Dramatic Reading of the Poem — A slow, sonorous reading of the poem.
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The First Industrial Revolution — A broad overview of the sweeping societal changes taking place during the late 18th and early 19th century in England.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by William Wordsworth
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