Pages

Monday, April 5, 2021

Celebrate Daffodil Season with a Poem! By Amy Norwood

Photo courtesy of High Country Gardens

Look around outside in March and April and you might see blooming daffodils.  Daffodils are grown from bulbs planted in the fall.  They are one of the earlier bulb flowers to bloom, and have a range of colors from deep gold to white and a variety of sizes to choose from.  Daffodils are deer resistant and tend to naturalize, that is, divide on their own and expand their territory year after year.

A large swath of naturalized daffodils inspired William Wordsworth to write this poem in 1804:

               I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud By William Wordsworth  (1770-1850)

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 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.

Courtesy Pexels

www.poetryfoundation.org

CSU Plant Talk Daffodils, Daffodil Care