The world is too much with me. Go away!
Ah — to be untethered from my phone
Walk in the woods and hear trees creak and groan
Or on the beach to feel the ocean’s spray
Instead I’m at its beck and call all day
Unless, of course, I chance upon a zone
That’s “dead” — and then (what pity!) I am thrown
To MY devices! Yes — for this I pray!
Perhaps I should “forget” my phone at home
When I go off upon my next vacation
I might find time to sit and read a tome
Goodness! This is such a real temptation!
Maybe I could even write a poem
Tempting. Oh-so-tempting — that cessation
I am humbled to say that my poem, Monongahela, led to me being chosen as Poet of the Week for the W3 Challenge. That meant that I got to choose the challenge for this week.
First, I was stunned to be chosen. And grateful.
Second, I was faced with The Challenge challenge.
Recently, I woke up one night with the words of a Wordsworth poem running through my head. As I told David, the keeper of the site that hosts the W3 challenge, it’s not totally unusual for me to wake with a poem in my head, but it’s almost always e.e. cummings who haunts my dreams. Strange, but true.
Anyway, I said to David, “Let’s use the Wordsworth sonnet as inspiration.” And that’s what the challenge turned out to be. He wrote:
William Wordsworth wrote “The world is too much with us,” and honestly… same. The holidays tend to sharpen that sense of disillusionment with materialism.
Below is Wordsworth’s sonnet. Choose one phrase from it and steal it—boldly and poetically. Weave the phrase into your own poem in any way you like; it should be recognizable, but the poem should be yours.
Your poem doesn’t need to be a sonnet, but in a nod to the form, limit yourself to 14 lines or fewer.
‘The World Is Too Much With Us’ by Wordsworth
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 wreathèd horn.
Hot Dogs and Marmalade 