Wordsworth. Does anyone remember the whole poem? The meter goes "AB AB CC".. I remember kids at the high school I attended for five years quoting, "I wandered lonely as a clod.."
Respect for the old stuff is seldom popular. Why I like tradition? I don't know. Watched the first part of Michael Cimino's "Heaven's Gate" last night. (1980! What a cast!!) The opening scene shows Kris Kristopherson, so young and smooth.. racing to attend commencement with his pals, including an equally unwrinkled John Hurt! The feeling of tradition fills the screen as an ancient ritual of breaking through lines of underclassmen 'protecting' a big old tree where nosegays have been pinned. Kristopherson climbs on the shoulders of his mates to claim a prize. Tradition!
So. Wordsworth is worth? One read? Will this paste? Is it two hundred years past silly.. or does it touch the spirit? Get a magnifying glass!
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: 10
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, 20
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
May Day.. May 1, 2016michaelsheehan
I love that poem. I'm going to snatch it and put it on my FB.
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