Blog Post #12 "The World is too Much with Us" by William Wordworth

The poem is basically the speaker saying that we're too focused on money and spending and on material things, and we don't have any grand reaction to nature anymore. We kind of take it for granted. Basically, we waste any power we have on us and advancing our lives and materials, without really caring too much about nature ("Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers," we just buy and sell, wasting all our potential and power that could be used with nature for better). It's all about the newest thing in the store. We don't know how to appreciate the simplicity and beauty of nature anymore, as we're too busy using it all up ("Little we see in nature that is ours,"implying that we see now value in nature, nothing we can own). The speaker also talks about how "we have given our hearts away," saying that nature no longer moves us, and that we've lost our souls in the process of increasing luxury, selling our hearts for whatever is on the market.
The poet uses a lot of imagery and figurative language to emphasize how he feels about the topic. He personifies the ocean to make it seem more powerful and more human, to try to create an element that can be sympathized with. He says that the wind will be howling at all hours, which kind of suggests a desperation/ loneliness coming from nature, helping to depict the affects that our withdrawal from nature has.
I think the poem is especially interesting because the speaker includes himself in the group of people who no longer appreciate nature (the use of "us" and "we"), and he decides to turn to paganism to try to remedy this. I find this interesting because it's not a hope to just enjoy nature in the last paragraph, it's a hope for nature to be more than it is, to have mystical creatures and more interesting sights, for it not to feel so lonely. It's like the speaker kind of recognizes how we treat nature, but can't fully bring himself to change this.

I do generally agree that we're kinda super not cool toward nature, and I feel like we forgot that we need to take care of our environment since we live here and it's keeping us alive. But rather than needing to turn to paganism, I want people to see the beauty nature already has (the world is super cool yo) and try to take a bit of a step back from the massive consuming we do (tho I think buying and spending is fine tbh we just can't lose sight of like other things, and maybe not focus as much on the latest trends, cause buying stuff can be fun and can help so ye compromise)