THE WORLD WITH US. THE world is too much with us; late and soon, We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This sea that bares her bosom to the moon; It moves us not.-Great God! I'd rather be So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; Have sight of Proteus coming from the sea, Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. WORDSWORTH. CYTHNA. SHE moved upon this earth a shape of brightness, Which wanders through the waste air's pathless blue Beside me, gathering beauty as she grew, Like the bright shade of some immortal dream Which walks, when tempest sleeps, the wave of life's dark stream. As mine own shadow was this child to me, All those steep paths which languor and despair Of friends, and overcome by lonely care, Though by a bitter wound my trusting heart was cleft. Once she was dear, now she was all I had To love in human life, this playmate sweet, Wandered with mine, where earth and ocean meet The unreposing billows ever beat. Through forests wide and old, and lowing dells, Where boughs of incense droop over the emerald wells. And warm and light I felt her clasping hand, It had no waste, but some memorial lent And soon I could not have refused her-thus Parted, but when brief sleep divided us, SHELLEY. |