{"id":4254,"date":"2020-03-22T23:43:54","date_gmt":"2020-03-22T23:43:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/?p=4254"},"modified":"2020-03-23T00:30:24","modified_gmt":"2020-03-23T00:30:24","slug":"poem-1-week-of-march-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/2020\/03\/22\/poem-1-week-of-march-16\/","title":{"rendered":"Poem # 1 (Week of March 16)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cI Wandered Lonely as a Cloud\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o\u2019er 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2014and gazed\u2014but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note to Kai:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You already know this poem (partly because the writers of \u201cBig Fish: The Musical\u201d ripped it off and you got to sing a love song based on it. You also know it is by a Romantic poet\u2013not my favorite Romantic poet (that would be Keats; he\u2019ll come up later) because he is sometimes trying to make things simpler than they are. But he is a really good \u201cstarter poet\u201d for simple, straightforward nature & feeling poems. Sometimes deceptively so. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reason I picked this poem (other than wanting to start with an old favorite you already know) is that it has taken on a whole new meaning for me in the spring of 2020. As of this week, it is a social distancing poem. About wandering off by yourself and watching the outdoor world closely because all over sudden it is a different place\u2013and later lying on the sofa by yourself and recalling what you saw. We need the walks. We also need the \u201cinward eye \/ which is the bliss of solitude.\u201d And we need to keep dancing with the daffodils. <\/em>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI Wandered Lonely as a Cloud\u201d William Wordsworth (1770-1850) I wandered lonely as a cloudThat floats on high o\u2019er 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 shineAnd twinkle on the milky way,They stretched … Continue reading “Poem # 1 (Week of March 16)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[26,25,24],"class_list":["post-4254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems-for-kai","tag-nature","tag-romanticism","tag-william-wordsworth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4254"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4260,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4254\/revisions\/4260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}