LINK TO VIDEO:https://www.facebook.com/100008875359296/videos/1540652119573952/

 

 

 

The short video, showing three dancing daffodils in our house located on the south side of Jefferson Park, was taped on March 27, 2016.

 

The three daffodils survived the unexpected snowfalls of April 3rd and 9th as shown in the photograph.

 

Note: The most famous poem in the English language was composed in 1804, two years after William Wordsworth (British poet, 1770-1850) saw the flowers while walking by Ullswater (the second largest lake in the English Lake District) on a stormy day with Dorothy, his sister.

 

His inspiration for the poem came from an account written by Dorothy.

In her journal entry for April 15, 1802, she describes how the daffodils 'tossed and reeled and danced, and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind, that blew upon them over the lake.'

 

Wordsworth published his poem, I wandered lonely as a Cloud, in 1807.

He altered it several times, and the final version, published in 1815, is simply a revision of the original, the new lines and vocabulary perhaps reflecting the changes in his lifestyle and where he saw himself in the social hierarchy.

 

Although Wordsworth's 'Daffodils' is one of the most famous and widely read poems in the English language, daffodils were probably not Wordsworth's favorite flower.

He wrote no less than three poems about the tiny Common Pilewort (Celandine) which blossoms in early spring.

 

Note: I was introduced to the poem when I was growing up in India – either during High School or college. I still remember the last stanza which is quoted in the short video.

 

 

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 theyOut-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.