While I’m trying to think of a way to revive my readers’ (and my own) interest in my blog, here’s some good writing by someone else: William Wordsworth.  I pulled my Romanticism anthology off the shelf in order to start working on the extensive revisions necessary for my essay “Shelley’s Queen Mab: The Medium versus the Message,” which currently makes me want to shoot myself in the eye.  Instead of shooting myself in the eye, I’ve decided to share with you my favorite Wordsworth poem.

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 every thing, 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 coming from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.