Rhythm and rhyme

“The World Is Too Much with Us” takes the form of an Italian sonnet, following a very structured rhyme scheme over 14 lines, making up an octave and a sestet. The rhyme scheme is: ABBA-ABBA-CDCDCD. 

The octave is comprised of enclosed rhymes. Here is an example of enclosed rhyme, in which ‘soon; rhymes with ‘boon’ and ‘powers’ rhymes with ‘ours’:

“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!” (ll. 1-4)

The sestet is made of alternate rhymes, which we have highlighted below:

“Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.” (ll. 12-14)

Assonance – the repetition of the same vowels, further enhance the poem’s musicality. Below, the poet he...