If you’ve been reading along with the Owl, you will know that my favorite spring flower is the daffodil. A symbol of hope and rebirth, alive with sunny warmth, there is nothing like seeing their waving little dance along the borders of walls, roads, and ponds.

Last fall, on a cold day in November, the Country Garden Club and volunteers planted 1,000 bulbs around the high school campus. I have watched their green shoots come up for the last two weeks near the building entrance and along the small lake that graces the campus. Yesterday, the golden daffodils were in their full glory, dancing and bending in the breeze, accompanying the sounds of baseball bat smacks, tennis court rallies, and the to-ing and fro-ing of people enjoying the spring afternoon. An Owlet dressed in sunny yellow as a soccer referee walked by oblivious, but I silently recited my Wordsworth. As I have said before, our high school/middle school campus is a treasure.

The coincidence this morning is that I am on my couch thinking about those daffodils (last stanza, people). Yes, I will post this poem at least once a year, because I am grateful that Mr. Wordsworth felt the same way about daffodils as I do. Happy Easter if you celebrate, and happy daffodils to all.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud 

By William Wordsworth

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.