Poetry Blog - Wordsworth and Cummings

William Wordsworth's poem "The World is Too Much With Us" identifies society as estranged from nature. "We are out of tune" with nature around us, instead "[laying] waste our powers." His claim that we are "wasting" our powers suggests that we spend too much time trying to gain more materially, in the process ignoring the environment that we live in. He describes beautiful scenes in his poem - such as the "Sea that bares her bosom to the moon" and the "winds... gathered now like sleeping flowers" - that we choose to estrange ourselves from.
The second poem I chose was "the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls" by E.E. Cummings. It similarly criticizes society's obsession with their own importance. But in Cumming's poem he reflects not on society's estrangement from nature, but their own naivety. Although the Cambridge ladies have interests "in so many things," they have "comfortable minds." This brings to mind "comfort zones" where one does not challenge oneself because he or she would rather remain the same than to have to work or experience difficulties.
I think I chose these two poems because they reflect some of the beliefs that I have of culture today. We tend to think of ourselves as the smartest beings on the planet. Compared to animals we are all geniuses. However, there is so much we have to learn. We place ourselves so high up in the animal kingdom and believe in our self-importance so much to the point that we forget that compared to the nature around us, we are but specks of dust in an enormous universe.