Wednesday, April 16, 2008

May I Have This Dance?

This may be my favorite time of the year, when the season changes from Shelly to Wordsworth. I drive by this field on the way to church, and I took the long way home today so I could see it again.



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;
Besides 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.

- William Woodsworth

3 comments:

Paula said...

Keats is better than either of those guys.

Steve Lamp said...

Perhaps Keats is a different season.

http://englishhistory.net/keats/poetry/toautumn.html

Paula said...

That was a good trump and an impressive expression of knowledge of the Romantic poets. Steve 10.