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.
-Wordsworth
Sensa titolo?
ReplyDeleteTrue Beauty always seems to have about it a poignant, elegiac quality, –– an aura of intense melancholy. A feeling, perhaps, in those sensitive to Loveliness that we don't deserve the great gifts God has given through Nature and the grand and noble, or sweetly intimate Visions and deep Perceptions captured in works of art by men of genius.
ReplyDeleteI imagine the great mass of humanity that seems incapable of appreciating the finer things in life shies away from Beauty, and prefers banal, vulgar, flippant, crude, boisterous and inane ocupation and forms of entertainment, because these low things do not challenge or threaten to awaken them from complacent acceptance of their ignorance, innate dulness, selfishness, and lack of empathy for others.
After all isn't it EASIER to sit in the dirt and beat a tom-tom, than it is to get up and strive to build a better wigwam?
____ A Stately Couple on the Lawn ____
ReplyDeleteLooking out into the morning mist
I spied a stately couple on the lawn
His head was crowned impressively with antlers
As if to show he took pride in his brawn.
She stood there meek and gentle by his side
Both enjoying a rare moment of contentment
I prayed no act or noise would break the spell
Though knowing life gives tension no abatement.
They didn’t see me staring through the pane
I stood still watching them in quiet rapture.
Then, as the mist began to lift, the sun
Spoiled the scene I had so hoped to capture.
The sunshine and a robin’s cheery song
Told the pair ’twas time to move along.
~ FreeThinke
ReplyDeleteArcturus his other name,—
I ’d rather call him star!
It ’s so unkind of science
To go and interfere!
I pull a flower from the woods,—
A monster with a glass
Computes the stamens in a breath,
And has her in a class.
Whereas I took the butterfly
Aforetime in my hat,
He sits erect in cabinets,
The clover-bells forgot.
What once was heaven, is zenith now.
Where I proposed to go
When time’s brief masquerade was done,
Is mapped, and charted too!
What if the poles should frisk about
And stand upon their heads!
I hope I’m ready for the worst,
Whatever prank betides!
Perhaps the kingdom of Heaven’s changed!
I hope the children there
Won’t be new-fashioned when I come,
And laugh at me, and stare!
I hope the father in the skies
Will lift his little girl,—
Old-fashioned, naughty, everything,—
Over the stile of pearl!
~ Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
"The world is too much with us"
ReplyDeleteI never hear the word "Escape!"
ReplyDelete___ without qucker blood ––
A sudden Agitation ––
___ flying Attitude.
I never hear of Prisons broad ––
___ by Soldiers battered down ––
But I tug –– childish –– at my Bars ––
––– only to Fail again.
~ Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
_____ Battling in the Darkness _____
ReplyDeleteIrrationality combined with spite
Laced with paranoid self-righteous zeal
Makes a combination hard to fight,
Since adversaries treat with nothing real.
Projection of self-doubt with willfulness
Combines to seal out decent, common sense.
So, even virtue shown with skillfulness
Can’t penetrate Obduracy’s defense.
Alas! The joy of honest thoughts exchanged
Is lost midst warring egotists stalemated ––
Entrenched by suppositions oft deranged ––
Employed to see all mutually berated.
Thus trapped in darkness blindly on we fight
Afraid to see our faults exposed to light.
~ Al Terego
"The world is too much with us"
ReplyDeleteIndeed it is, and that is precise why we need high-level Poetry, Art, Literature, Prayer and Meditation, Music, Drama, Fiction and heightened creative Domestic Pursuits such as Sewing, Gardening, Interior Decoration, Home Improvement, and an increasingly adventurous, joyously experimental approach to Cooking an Entertaining so that it approaches Culinary Art.
Universities used to be Ivory Towers of knowledge etched in "stone". Now they are the engines of change and destruction. Where is the "brake" to run-away Modernity today? Who dares take a time out within 'Nature' w/o a fear of being "left behind"?
ReplyDeleteBeing "left behind" might be the only way we might still hope to save ourselves from becoming just anther cog in the monstrous machinery created by the depraved Marxian-Post-Modern mentality.
ReplyDeleteAs I've said often in recent years, if i had children, I would do everything in my power to STOP them from becoming INDOCTRiNATED by the would-be totalitarian bastards who systematically destroy young minds, –– and any potential they might have had for true creativity in the POISON IVY LEAGUE, and it's ubuquitous satellites throught the nation..
I'd send them to a TRADE SCHOOL or APPRENTICE THEM to a Master Craftsman, then make sure they had a large supply of Great Books from our Glorious Past on hand, and as many recordings of Classical Music and Jazz as their dwelling spaces could hold.
As Jesus said, "What profiteth it a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul?>
When it comes to a clear choice between God and Mammon, I'll choose GOD every time.