November 01, 2008

Weekend poetry fix: get your Wordsworth right here


Image courtesy of wikipedia.

We are pretty out of synch with nature these days, but William Wordsworth (1770-1850) saw it coming way back when. The neo-classical ancient Greek pagan wannabe in me likes this one:

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.


El Cabrero does not get too many glimpses of Proteus or Triton in landlocked West Virginia, but the sentiment works.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: LUNAR

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