The virtue of William Wordsworths The World is Too Much with Us is found in its romantic imagery of a fantastic ancient

lifestyle that has, according to Wordsworth, become lost to us through our civilization. Wordsworth draws the reader into a world where the elements and forces of nature have sensual personalities and mighty gods commanding them, animating them to give his Romantic appeal the passionate grandiosity that seems to be a cornerstone of the poetical assertion we find in The World is Too Much with Us. Wordsworth describes how our spiritual lives were once robust and wonderful, and even though we didnt have the comforts of then 19th century civilization, it was through this freedom that humanity found the spiritual meaning that we had become detached from, and continue to be detached from today. It is this natural state that Wordsworth longs for, and imagines returning to. In his poem, The World is Too Much with Us, Wordsworth describes how civilized life has disconnected us from both the natural world and our innate spirituality. William Wordsworth illustrates in The World is Too Much with Us how, in the early 19th century, mankind is plagued by materialism and the monotonies of wasted time in capitalistic pursuits. Wordsworth describes us as lay(ing) waste to our powers (2) and being so far removed from our roots that Little we see in Nature that is ours (3). Wordsworth exposes us as once being spiritual creatures with a place in nature, but through our modern day delusions We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! (4). In The World is Too Much with Us Wordsworth describes how we have ceased to be the divine vessels we once were when we worshiped nature. Humanity, in essence, has become, to William Wordsworth, a spiritual shell who slaves towards empty and shallow ends. The following lines of William Wordsworths The World is Too Much with Us are emotionally powerful images of vivacious and uninhibited wild nature pouring their hearts into their passions: (the) Sea that bares her bosom to the moon (5) and the winds that will be howling at all hours (6). William Wordsworth, in a sort of fantasy that many, even today, dream of returning to, describes how he wishes he had been raised a Pagan of an ancient religion, suckled in a creed outworn (10), where he could be a part of that magical world, glimpsing from a vast field the sea gods rising from the ocean; (to) Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; / Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn (13-14). Though written in the 19th century, William Wordsworths The World is Too Much with Us bears a message as meaningful today as it was two hundred years ago. The theme of the poem is so similar to the naturalists philosophy of today that it is amazing that this is actually something written over two hundred years ago. To a modern reader, it is almost impossible to think that William Wordsworth, a poet from the eighteen-hundreds, could actually be thinking in a way that was considered radically progressive less than half a century ago. In many ways, it is a common bond that the spiritually restless can share in their hopes for a life outside of modern society. Unfortunately, it also shows just how much further mankind has fallen from the natural grace they once possessed, and how unlikely it is that they will ever return. William Wordsworths The World is Too Much with Us is an incredibly romantic sonnet. Through its passionate imagery and primal message, Wordsworth reaches across centuries to touch the imagination and latent dreams of readers even today. It is amazing to think that the human longing to return to a simpler, more spiritual fulfilling time could actually be so universal. It is for this reason that Wordsworths prose could be whispered on the lips of naturalists today just as easily as they could be sung for the centuries to come.