The World Is Too Much With Us

Concern about losing contact with the world beyond brick, tarmac and concrete isn't new, but even that has been corrupted by politics, charlatans, crooks and loons. 

As we know.

This old poem expresses it well, written long ago by a poet most Makerfield voters won't be familiar with. Oh well - please excuse the sarcasm, but good grief, the world really 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!
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.

William Wordsworth (1807)