THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US IN IT

The material world (city, our job, our innumerable financial obligations) controls our lives to an unhealthy degree. We are always rushing from one thing to the next; we earn money one day just to spend it the next. The result of this is that we have destroyed a vital part of our humanity: we have lost the ability to find tranquility in nature. In exchange for material gain, we have given away our emotions and liveliness. Our lives have nothing to do with the rhythms of the natural world. As a consequence, those rhythms have no emotional impact on us.

The speaker describes humankind’s relationship with the natural world in terms of loss. That relationship once flourished, but now, due to the impacts of industrialization on everyday life, humankind has lost the ability to appreciate and celebrate nature. To emphasize this central loss, the poem describes it from three angles: economic, spiritual, and cultural. Notably, the poem does not suggest a way to regain what is lost. Rather, its tone is desperate, arguing that humankind’s original relationship with nature can never be revived.