Text 25

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!

That 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 sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

Influenced by Wordsworth's poetry were the later Romantic poets. Perhaps, Keats deserves special attention as his major work was done in one year; he was terminally ill with tuberculosis, and he knew it. Keats was a true poet who was convinced that if Poetry comes not as naturally as the Leaves to a tree it had better not come at all. For a long time Keats was looked upon as an apostle of beauty, as an early exponent of the art for art's sake theory. Yet Keats sought beauty because he was searching for an ethical and aesthetical ideal denying the false values of the period.

Sonnets comprise a considerable part of Keats' literary heritage. The lines that follow (Text 26) are generally considered to be Keats' last sonnet. Those lines were written down by the poet on a blank page in a collection of Shakespeare's works; at that time Keats was on board a ship bound for Rome where he died shortly.