Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Spring has sprung, the grass has riz, whilst wondering where the birdies is I also think of Wordsworth.

(Photograph by David Hopkins, Stanly County, North Carolina)


I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud
by William Wordsworth


I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

7 comments:

  1. This isn't really a poem about daffodils. It's about man's relationship with Nature. "That inward eye" sees more clearly and more happily when connected harmoniously to the natural world around us.

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  2. I love this poem! We had to memorize it in the 5th grade and so of course it has always stuck with me over the years.

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  3. Serendipity. Yesterday rather a lot of bulbs I have ordered (mostly daffodils) arrived here. There is much weeding and preparation to do, but in a couple of months time I hope that my garden blazes.
    And I do like Wordsworth's poem. And reread it often. Thank you.

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  4. Coming from the sub-tropics where Spring is almost a non-event, it is lovely to see these daffs. It is reading so much about them, and Spring, which made me want to visit England so much to witness Spring - daffodils, blue bells, roses, rhododendrons - all lovely.

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  5. In 1975, I had the pleasure of visiting Wordsworth's Dove Cottage in the beautiful Lake District of England. The timing of my visit followed by some months the blooming of daffodils in that area, but I saw them in "my inward eye."

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  6. Where would we be without Wordsworth?

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  7. Beautiful poem. I’d love to see this field of daffodils in North Carolina. At Bulloch Hall I saw rows of daffodils and sometime see some wild ones along the road.

    I see we share a March birthday – happy belated birthday! Mine was yesterday, the 26th, and I am not finished celebrating it….

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<b>Always true to you, darlin’, in my fashion</b>

We are bombarded daily by abbreviations in everyday life, abbreviations that are never explained, only assumed to be understood by everyone...