The Disadvantages of a Liberal Education

So there I was, climbing down from the train this morning, listening to the racket of traffic and leaf blowers and random loonies, and unbidden, this came into my head.

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-gather'd 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.

W. Wordsworth

Thank you very much, Professor Newman. Still with me thirty years later.