Williams Wordsworth was one of my favorite poets when I was in high school. He was a Romanticist and one of the "nature poets" because he so loved nature, rather than the complexities and ugliness of man-made life. I remember the English teacher I had (Mrs. Fischer) and how much I loved learning to analyze the poetry and then understand the meaning -- it was fun for a nerd like me to suddenly "get it" when most of the rest of the class didn't. This one is still relevant even now; enjoy.
***
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.
***
Right now, poetry is the only thing I can stand to read. Every other medium fills me with anger, fear, disgust, or loathing. The country is teetering on the brink of collapse while we scream frantically at each other over petty political tricks and the rich count their golden bonuses, laughing at the rubes.
When did it become a good thing as an American to be dumb?
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1 comment:
Perhaps, my dear, it was always a good thing to be dumb. To blithely 'go along, valuing the common values, singing the most popular song, wearing a pageboy and saddle shoes, popping your symbolic gum, and just not getting it.
And then, along the way, something happened, and like the first fish to walk upon the land, a few of us got "this other idea." That somehow thinking would set us apart. And it did. Lordy, how it did.
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