Of Pensive Mood
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
Outdid 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.
A summer of dis-ease. In a series of weeks in which the communities of humanity have groaned and nearly broken under war and plague, where children die in the violence of intolerance and hatred, when entire families fall stricken with death that sweeps the earth like fire, and fires themselves sweep the lands without mercy, I weep. Honestly, is this all we have to show for ourselves? Have we learned and mastered so little of what it means to thrive, to survive?
What of centuries of shaman song, of fishing and planting, weavers and poets? Of unspeakably beautiful marble temples, the stones cut over years of labor, the ancient mythological gods gathering dust under soft museum lights? The impotence of human history taunts me. The impermanence of its wisest voices, the reverends and warrior kings. Has nothing lasting and eternally good accrued from the very minds that gave us geometry, boats to sail the roughest seas, literacy, print, the science of planets, phonographs, power plants, fine wines, and rising GNP? What of Beethoven's symphonies, quantum leaps in technology, breakthrough medical science, the pioneer, the immigrant, prairie schools and anonymous, selfless charity? Genius abounds in the cultures of civilization; enlightenment not so much. Can we not imprint on our hearts ways to coexist, to care for and comfort one another?
This week I find solace in the innocent world itself. In the unexplained and miraculous existence of nature's beauty, unadorned and without commerce, unchained and given to all. William Wordsworth finds me even as he describes himself, "in vacant or in pensive mood." His poem a reminder that no matter what we may do, what ravages of disease or war may come, some part of us yet "dances with the daffodils."
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
Outdid 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.
A summer of dis-ease. In a series of weeks in which the communities of humanity have groaned and nearly broken under war and plague, where children die in the violence of intolerance and hatred, when entire families fall stricken with death that sweeps the earth like fire, and fires themselves sweep the lands without mercy, I weep. Honestly, is this all we have to show for ourselves? Have we learned and mastered so little of what it means to thrive, to survive?
What of centuries of shaman song, of fishing and planting, weavers and poets? Of unspeakably beautiful marble temples, the stones cut over years of labor, the ancient mythological gods gathering dust under soft museum lights? The impotence of human history taunts me. The impermanence of its wisest voices, the reverends and warrior kings. Has nothing lasting and eternally good accrued from the very minds that gave us geometry, boats to sail the roughest seas, literacy, print, the science of planets, phonographs, power plants, fine wines, and rising GNP? What of Beethoven's symphonies, quantum leaps in technology, breakthrough medical science, the pioneer, the immigrant, prairie schools and anonymous, selfless charity? Genius abounds in the cultures of civilization; enlightenment not so much. Can we not imprint on our hearts ways to coexist, to care for and comfort one another?
This week I find solace in the innocent world itself. In the unexplained and miraculous existence of nature's beauty, unadorned and without commerce, unchained and given to all. William Wordsworth finds me even as he describes himself, "in vacant or in pensive mood." His poem a reminder that no matter what we may do, what ravages of disease or war may come, some part of us yet "dances with the daffodils."
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