Cord Byrd: “a great poet of the last century, William Wordsworth, wrote a famous piece of poetry which schoolchildren ought to…”

“a great poet of the last century, William Wordsworth, wrote a famous piece of poetry which schoolchildren ought to memorize. They used to memorize it. It begins: 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 in 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. * * * * * 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. Wordsworth surely wrote those lines thinking, of course, of spring and perhaps of March, for again this March, the crisp brown leaves of winter are scattering before the blustery winds, and the daffodils are dancing in the breeze. And like those bright heralds of spring, I come to the floor today to celebrate today's vernal equinox, that celestial marker of winter's end and the beginning of perhaps the most blessed season of the earth's awakening.”