An Audio Guide to Poetry Recitation - 13. "The World Is Too Much

An Audio Guide to Poetry Recitation - 13. "The World Is Too Much with Us"


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Here Angela Lansbury takes a poem that some might consider intellectual. Listen how she imbues the poem with emotional anxiety and concern.

[Voice of Angela Lansbury]This is a poem by William Wordsworth. It was the first poem that I ever learned at school. I guess I was about nine or ten years old. It was back in England when I was a kid. It's called The World Is Too Much with Us.

The World Is Too Much with Us
by William Wordsworth
[Read by Angela Lansbury]

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!
The 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 wreathèd horn.