Odysseus Meets Nausicaa

Odysseus Meets Nausicaa
Odysseus Meets Nausicaa, Pieter Lastman (1619), In Munich Old master Gallery

Saturday, July 20, 2013

"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"

Picture of lone palm tree surrounded by clouds in a lot at the edge of downtown Phoenix, taken as I walked home from the YMCA. I thought of Williams Wordsworth's poem, Daffodils, or "I Wandered lonely as a Cloud."


"I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD"

          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.
                                                              1804.





 
 
 
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