Spring Daffodils - Happy Birthday William Wordsworth

April 7th marks the birthday of William Wordsworth the 17th Century English romantic poet, who is known for his poem “I wandered Lonely As A Cloud”,  perhaps better known as “The Daffodils”. 

One can't help wonder if when he was writing his words 170 years ago, he could have imagined that we too, would be celebrating these cheerful yellow blooms over here on the East Coast of the USA, at the time of his birthday each year.

In early April, as we all anticipate spring on Martha’s Vineyard, the road sides and woods are exploding with yellow. It seems to happen almost over-night.   Forsythia, daffodils, and even the yellow stripe down the centre of the road seems to pop against the grey canvas of winter. The steadfast reliability of the daffodils that duplicate and spread, appearing each year is a comfort to us all, a sign of hope and that we know summer is a few months away.

Enjoy Wordsworths poem here, read by Actor Jeremy Irons, courtesy of You Tube.

 

In Wordsworth's poem, like us, he delights in the simple pleasure that the daffodil brings as they dance in the breeze, and even when we are having a quiet moment the mere thought of them evokes hope and joy. 

The poem was inspired by a walk Wordsworth took with his sister, Dorothy, in the Lake District of Northern England.  You might agree that she could be describing a typical walk in April in Chilmark? …. her journal entry of 1802 reads as follows:

 

“When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow park we saw a few daffodils close to the water side, we fancied that the lake had floated the seed ashore and that the little colony had so sprung up – But as we went along there were more and yet more and at last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road. I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about and about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness and the rest tossed and reeled and danced and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the Lake, they looked so gay ever glancing ever changing. This wind blew directly over the lake to them. There was here and there a little knot and a few stragglers a few yards higher up but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity and unity and life of that one busy highway – We rested again and again. The Bays were stormy and we heard the waves at different distances and in the middle of the water like the Sea.”

— Dorothy Wordsworth, The Grasmere Journal Thursday, 15 April 1802

 

Isnt it nice to know these blooms have been delighting humans for hundreds of years, and will continue to do so for hundreds of years to come?

 

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.

 

Have a lovely Easter and Happy Spring everyone!