Poem with Posies

 

Annually I love posting images of daffodils along with this poem by William Wordsworth.  Typically I include only an excerpt but today the entire piece follows.  The last line in the first stanza humors me as often in Iowa the April wind makes it seem as if these beauties are in a breakdancing competition.

 

The Daffodils

                                                                                                                    --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 sparking 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.