WELCOME SPRING

Spring has been slow showing it's face in our little corner of the world and while people living just ten minutes from us have been raking their lawn weeks ago, we are still waiting for the last of our snow to disappear. Although our crocuses and daffodils have yet to bloom, the hubby surprised me the other day with a gift of what's to come.

One of my favorite poems that always makes me smile is Daffodils by William Wordsworth (1770-1850). It is a lyrical poem in which Wordsworth compares himself to a lonely cloud and personifies the field of golden daffodils he sees below as a crowd of joyful dancers. The poem shows the author's love and appreciation of the beauty of nature.

"Daffodils"
I wander'd 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 stretch'd 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.
By William Wordsworth (1770-1850).



But another lesser known poem To Daffodils by  Robert Herrick is equally stirring of the emotions but in a different way. While Wordsworth evokes feelings of joy, Herrick has a note of melancholy/sadness in his poem which arises out of the realization that beauty is not going to stay forever. He compares the fast dying daffodils to the shortness of human life.

To Daffodils

Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attain'd his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the even-song;
And, having pray'd together, we
Will go with you along.
We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or anything.
We die
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer's rain;
Or as the pearls of morning's dew,
Ne'er to be found again.
by Robert Herrick

ON LIFE

"A little while and I will be gone from among you, whither I cannot tell. From nowhere we came, and into nowhere we go. What is life? It is as a flash of a firefly in the night. It is as the breath of a buffalo in the winter time. It is as the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset." - Crowfoot, chief of the Blackfoot Indians (1890)

For this weeks Sunday Cirar I have chosen a quote that appeared in the obituary of an elderly neighbor who passed away this week. Hugh was a retired school teacher, a poet, a lover of nature and a real "gentleman." He moved away a few years ago, but while he lived here he would always stop to chat with my husband whenever he saw him outside while on his daily walks. He loved to talk about birds and other things of nature that he witnessed on his many walks through the orchards and woods, and they were the subject of most of his wonderful poetry.

We last saw Hugh while shopping last winter when he told us he was diagnosed with lung cancer...although he never smoked in his life.

I loved his choice of a quote because I know it reflected his love of nature and his outlook on life. I chose the above picture because it is the view he would have seen many times over throughout the years on his beloved walks.

Join the fun ...Sunday Citar at Fresh Mommy.