I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD…

It may seem a tad abnormal, but I love wintertime! Fall is probably my favorite season, but I really like the winter too. I relish being wrapped up in plaids, jackets and sweaters, bundled into coats, and swathed in colorful shawls with frosty air nipping my nose and the possibility that I will be able to look out of my kitchen window and watch the snowflakes fluttering down through the bare grey limbs of the sugar maples behind the house.

But as March steals onto the scene with gusty winds and bright skies, I do enjoy seeing the succession of bulb plants that begin to bloom this time of year: crocuses, daffodils, tulips, hyacinths and irises. To see them sending deep green shoots through the stiff, brown grass cannot help but remind you that the earth is beginning to awake and make itself ready for spring and for Easter.

I especially like daffodils and they never fail to remind me of one of my favorite poems by one of my favorite poets, William Wordsworth –

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"
(also commonly known as "Daffodils" or "The Daffodils")

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.

Published in Collected Poems, 1815

(I somehow identify with the “in vacant or in pensive mood” line....)

Uncle R’s dad knew that poem by heart, having learned it in school when he was a child in North Dakota. It’s so amazing to me that he carried that poem in his heart and mind for some 80 years or so and when I would ask him about it – he would give me a toothy grin and begin reciting. As with so many talents and traits of his - I loved that!

Just in the way the Lord sends rainbows as a continual reminder of one of His promises, I think that the soft green leaves emerging on trees and sharp blades of green emerging from frozen soil can remind us of His continual renewal of our hearts when they remain open.

You send forth Your Spirit, they are created; And You renew the face of the ground.
Psalm 104:30

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12:2

Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.

2 Corinthians 4:16

Love and Happy Springtime to the Pamela’s Girls!

Auntie J.