William Wordsworth – The World is too much with us
Before Christmas, lots of people in Christian countries have a lot of stress. They feel overwhelmed by the obligation to buy presents, prepare food and work at the same time to earn enough money for all that. In December, their natural needs such as sleep, relaxation, breathing in fresh air, healthy eating and drinking, etc. are put back and shelved because of a lack of time. Modern priests tend to lament this behavior in their Christmas sermons.
In his sonnet, William Wordsworth is also lamenting that “[t]he world is too much with us”. The title is repeated in the first line and it is explained in the following lines what is meant by this extraordinary remark: here, “the world” refers to everything that is not nature and “we”, that is the human beings at the time, are too much concerned with it. Wordsworth argues that it has lately been that way and will not change in the near future (“late and soon” (l.1)). This view already reflects the hopelessness and melancholic attitude of the poetic speaker.