The World is Too much with Us

Here, I want you to have this. It was the first poem I ever committed to memory. At the time, assigned by my 10th grade English teacher, it was another goddamn chore, more homework and another task to take care of between getting my braces tightened and watching surf videos. But I did the homework; I got the grade. I also got the poem. A 200-year-old slap in the face. And I want you to have it too. 

We’re sure in the throes of our own strange days right now and I know every conversation you’re having surely finds its way to the topics of today. Of stress and media and friction and climate crisis. Of nefarious political strategy and pandemic uncertainty. We’re celebrating our societal neurosis with every swipe and refresh, dancing to the sounds of click bait and Tik Tok, while we order new wave pools for everyone to piss in. Our own sordid boon!  

But, all is not lost. As long as the wind blows white caps and we can ponder the life that’s inside a tree, we can be okay. If we want. And surfers, we should be the ones who get this. We’re lucky. Privileged. Blessed. As Paul Banks so simply put it recently when talking with us about surfing: “It truly is the end all be all. It’s spiritual and athletic in such extreme quantities that I can’t imagine any pastime being more fulfilling.” 

So here, you already have the surfing. Now I’m giving you the poem. Spend a quiet moment reading it. Hell, commit it to memory. And bring it with you wherever you go. It helps. —Travis Ferré

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!

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, 1802

[Abobe artwork: The Soothsayer’s Recompense, Giorgio de Chirico, 1913]