Getting and spending

In William Wordsworth's sonnet 'The World Is Too Much With Us', the poet complains that the worldly life, 'getting and spending' (earning and spending money), takes up all our time and wastes our powers.

We see little in Nature that we feel belongs to us. We have given our hearts away, in a poor bargain, in exchange for material things.

The sea that bares itself to the moonlight, and the winds that will howl at all hours but are now gathered up and resting like sleeping flowers: none of these moves us any more. We are 'out of tune' with Nature.

These first eight lines form the octave of the sonnet. They rhyme ABBAABBA.

Wordsworth was a Romantic poet, who lived for many years among the lakes and hills of northern England, the Lake District. He believed that Nature should be part of our inner life, feeding our minds and hearts.

Busy with money, the poem says, we have stopped feeling Nature.