Daffodils

Every year about this time I pay  homage to my favorite flowers by posting them swaying in the breeze. Well, I found this old pic the other day and decided that this one might do this year. I’ve always loved Daffodils–the poem too by Wordsworth–the stuff about wandering lonely as a cloud and then finding the golden expanse of daffodils. Then there is the ending, where the writer is relaxing, closing their eyes and seeing the simplicity, the beauty of the flower once again. I like to think the poem is a metaphor for life–for keeping the beauty, the utter simplicity of it all and holding it within yourself. This photo is from 25 years ago, even then I was a “daffy” dil.

Wordsworth’s poem:

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.