The children and I read from a poetry book many mornings. This is the Wordsworth poem we read recently. Even out here it is easy to get caught up in ‘getting and spending’, and making a living can easily overpower making a life. The two are not mutually exclusive, of course, but merging them successfully requires reflection and intention.
"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 -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 the pleasant Iea, Have
glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have
sight of Proteus rising from the sea, Or hear
old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
Starry Sky Journal 
Beautiful poem! I haven’t read it in a long time (20 years or so? – yikes!)
By the way, should the word “boom” in the 4th line be “boon”? I only know that because my college professor thought I was showing off on the first day of Freshman English when I quoted Shakespeare (Somewhere in MacBeth he says “sordid boon”) and said professor took to picking on me for the rest of the semester. That taught ME not to raise my hand to answer any questions!
Good catch! I get to razz daughter number one now. If you have Typepad you know how maddening it is to cut and paste into posts. She typed the poem part for me since she was showering when we went over the poem and missed it the first time. Apparently BOOM sounded better to her LOL!