"The World is Too Much With Us" (William Wordsworth)

William Wordsworth ni mmoja kati ya washairi maarufu kabisa katika ki-Ingereza. Kila ninapoona au kukumbuka jina la Wordsworth, shairi lake refu na maarufu liitwalo "Tintern Abbey" linanijia hima akilini. Leo napenda kuleta shairi moja ambalo linatuasa juu ya mahangaiko yetu na mambo ya dunia, hasa kusaka pesa na kutumia, ambayo yanafuja vipaji vyetu vya asili na kutusahaulisha yale ambayo yangetuletea faraja ya kweli. Shairi hili linaitwa "The World is Too Much With Us." Mtazamo huu umejengeka katika mkondo wa ushairi na sanaa kwa ujumla ambao unaojulikana kama "Romanticism," ambamo alikuwemo Wordsworth pamoja na washairi wenzake maarufu kama Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron na John Keats.


THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US

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!
The 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 wreathed horn.

(William Wordsworth, 1770-185)