Friday, September 11, 2015

William Wordsworth's words speak to future of St. Augustine in our 451st year

On Flagler College Radio, WFCF, 88.5 ("Radio With a Reason"), local Keith Schlegel just read, as only his gifted, inflected voice can do, Wordsworth's greatest poem, my mother's favorite, oft-recited to me in my formative years:
The World Is Too Much With Us
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
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.

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