Daffodils

At this time of year I simply can't stop wondering around the garden to look at all the new life that seems to appear from nowhere. The predominant colour is yellow as the daffodils are now fully out here on our 900 ft Scottish hill and when the sun is also out as it was today, the whole world seems to be one great yellow fest.

Daffodils always bring the following poem to mind. Most people are familiar with the first few lines but few know the rest so here it is, courtesy of William Wordsworth:

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 ways,

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 wave 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.