In 1807 Wordsworth wrote the poem The World is too much with us.

At the ending
of the 20th century Boey Kim Cheng wrote a poem called Report to Wordsworth.
Compare and contrast both poems and draw your conclusions: which view of human
beings and nature does each of the texts convey?

The World is too much with us. Report to Wordsworth.

The world is too much with us; late and soon, You should be here. Nature
has need of you
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; She has been laid waste. Smothered
by the smog,
Little we see in Nature that is ours; the flowers are mute, and the birds
are few
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! In a sky slowing like a dying
clock,
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon, All hopes of Proteus rising from the
sea
The winds that will be howling at all hours, have sunk; he is entombed in the
waste
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers, we dump. Tritons notes
struggle to be free,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune; his famous horns are choked, his
eyes are dazed,
It moves us not. Great God! Id rather be and Neptune lies helpless as a
beached whale,
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; while insatiate man moves in for the
kill.
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Poetry and piety have begun to fail,
Have glimpses that would make less forlorn; as Natures mighty heart is lying
still.
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; O see the wound widening in the sky.
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. God is laboring to utter his last cry.

William Wordsworth. Boey Kim Cheng.

In 1807 Wordsworth wrote the poem The World is too much with us. At the ending
of the 20th century Boey Kim Cheng wrote a poem called Report to Wordsworth.
Compare and contrast both poems and draw your conclusions: which view of human
beings and nature does each of the texts convey?

The World is too much with us. Report to Wordsworth.

The world is too much with us; late and soon, You should be here. Nature
has need of you
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; She has been laid waste. Smothered
by the smog,
Little we see in Nature that is ours; the flowers are mute, and the birds
are few
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! In a sky slowing like a dying
clock,
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon, All hopes of Proteus rising from the
sea
The winds that will be howling at all hours, have sunk; he is entombed in the
waste
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers, we dump. Tritons notes
struggle to be free,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune; his famous horns are choked, his
eyes are dazed,
It moves us not. Great God! Id rather be and Neptune lies helpless as a
beached whale,
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; while insatiate man moves in for the
kill.
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Poetry and piety have begun to fail,
Have glimpses that would make less forlorn; as Natures mighty heart is lying
still.
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; O see the wound widening in the sky.
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. God is laboring to utter his last cry.

William Wordsworth. Boey Kim Cheng.