The World Is Too Much With Us

BY WILLIA M WORDS WORTH

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.

Strange Meeting BY WILF RED OWEN

It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.

Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,

Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,—
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained;

Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
“Strange friend,” I said, “here is no cause to mourn.”
“None,” said that other, “save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something had been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress.
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery;
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery:
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels,
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.

“I am the enemy you killed, my friend.

I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now. . . .”
 If— BY R U D Y A R D KIP LIN G (‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
 Piano
BY D. H. LA WRENCE
Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song

Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.

So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour

With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.
Author Introduction:
J.B.S. Haldane was son of the noted physiologist John Scott Haldane, he began studying
science as assistant to his father at the age of eight and later received formal education in the
classics at Eton College and at New College, Oxford (M.A., 1914). After World War I he served as a
fellow of New College and then taught at the University of Cambridge (1922–32), the University of
California, Berkeley (1932), and the University of London (1933–57). In the 1930s Haldane became
a Marxist.
He joined the British Communist Party and assumed editorship of the party’s London paper, the
Daily Worker. Later, he became disillusioned with the official party line and with the rise of the
controversial Soviet biologist Trofim D. Lysenko.
In 1957 Haldane moved to India, where he took citizenship and headed the government Genetics
and Biometry Laboratory in Orissa. Haldane, R.A. Fisher, and Sewall Wright, in separate
mathematical arguments based on analyses of mutation rates, population size, patterns of
reproduction, and other factors, related Darwinian evolutionary theory and Gregor Mendel’s
concepts of heredity. Haldane also contributed to the theory of enzyme action and to studies in
human physiology.

He possessed a combination of analytic powers, literary abilities, a wide range of knowledge, and a
force of personality that produced numerous discoveries in several scientific fields and proved
stimulating to an entire generation of research workers. Haldane’s major works include Daedalus
(1924), Animal Biology (with British evolutionist Julian Huxley, 1927), The Inequality of Man (1932),
The Causes of Evolution (1932), The Marxist Philosophy and the Sciences (1938), Science
Advances (1947), and The Biochemistry of Genetics (1954). Selected Genetic Papers of J.B.S.
Haldane, ed. by Krishna R. Dronamraju, was published in 1990.

The Scientific Point of View Summary:

In the view of Haldane, The scientific point of view must come out of the laboratory and be
applied to the events of daily life. What has already revolutionized industry, agriculture, war and
medicine must be applied to the family, nation and the human race. He says that science affects us
in two ways – we are benefited by its application for example, using cars, buses and motor vehicles
instead of using horse drawn vehicles and for disease we are going to Doctor instead of going for
superstitious things (Witch, Tallish-man).
The second one is it influences our opinions, as now everyone believes that the earth is round and
the heavens are nearly empty instead of solid. Haldane says that the scientist is superior to God as
he is ethically neutral, he works out of the consequences of many actions Haldane says that science
 attempts to be truthful and impartial. By comparing scientific point of view with legal point of view, he
says that a judge may only be impartial in giving his judgment between two individuals, whereas a
scientist is impartial not only between people but also about a tape worm and the solar system. By
comparing scientific point of view with God’s view, Haldane says that scientist simply interprets the
consequences many actions rather than passing judgments, which is while done by God.

The tendency of average man, as Haldane opines, always dwell on the emotional and ethical side of
an issue rather than on facts. For this first he mentioned the problem of American Negros. Some
Americans believe that Negros are inferior to them and so should be segregated from them. While
some believe that they should enjoy the same rights like white Americans. But the scientist makes it
clear that both these groups of people are comfortable only in their respective areas and both of
them die of consumption whenever they step into each other’s areas.
Haldane remarks that our approach to the problem of disease is even less rational. He says that the
pre-Christians believe that if someone was suffering from any disease, it was a punishment from
some goddess for a sin either by the sick person or his family or of his whole community. But
Haldane makes it clear that civilized and savage (uncivilized) man, health and sickness are equally
parts of nature.
Haldane says that modern medicine has come out with miraculous drugs but it has become very
hard to apply its results in practice. With the example of diabetics Haldane remarks that diabetes can
easily be controlled by injecting insulin, but they hardly takes the suggestions of doctors regarding to
take medicine. By taking typhoid disease as an example, Haldane remarks that the common people
always attempt to ‘cure’ from their disease. But Haldane says that a scientist attempts to ‘prevent’
the disease instead of cure it.
Finally Haldane says that average man and woman should not be guided by false principles. He
concludes that unless and until humans adopt scientific point of view, the enemies of science can’t
be conquered.
Meanings:-

Haldane quotes St. Pauls words that the world is ruled by demons. Haldane modifies that statement
and says that the world is misruled by ignoranceand unscientific thinking.

Vocabulary:

 Genetics = the study of how the inherited characteristics are passed from one generation to another
generation
 Evolution = gradual development of living organisms from their earlier forms
 Superstition = a belief not based on reason
 Rational thinking = intellectual thinking
 Heavens = celestial sphere
 Consequences = results
 Impartial = being neutral; treating all equally
 Segregate= separate
 Goddess = a female deity
 Savage = wild; uncivilized; rude
 Miraculous = wonderful; great
 Cure= heal