National Poetry Month

In celebration of April, National Poetry Month, here is a brilliant, blithe poem and a quote.

"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.

--William Wordsworth

"Everybody who has ever lived in the world and could string two rhymes together has written a poem on spring. It is the most berhymed subject in the world--and always will be because it is poetry incarnate itself. You can never be a real poet if you haven't made at least one poem about spring."

--Lucy Maud Montgomery in Emily of New Moon