The World is too Much with Us Man and the Natural World Quotes

How we cite our quotes: Line Numbers

Quote #4

The winds that will be howling at all hours
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers (6-7)

The winds are the second thing that the poet says no longer move us; they are compared to some kind of wild animal ("howling") and to something as quiet and beautiful as a flower. The use of two different images for the wind suggests that the natural world is full of variety.

Quote #5

For this, for everything, we are out of tune.
It moves us not (8-9)

The speaker compares people to a musical instrument that is not in "tune" with nature; a musical instrument has a correct pitch to which it is supposed to be tuned, and the lines imply that humanity is supposed to be tuned so as to be in harmony with nature, as if that were the way things were supposed to be. The image of music returns in the last line of the poem with Triton's "wreathed horn" (14).

Quote #6

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; (11-2)

The speaker describes a hypothetical scenario where he would see things in nature that would make him "less forlorn"; one could read the lines as suggesting that the speaker himself sees nothing in nature and would rather be a pagan because then nature would be more "animated," more interesting than it is now.