By Jane Gordon Julien
April 14, 2024
To escape the daily crush of news, I went for an ambling walk Sunday in Central Park. Everyone else in New York City must have had the same idea.
Even though New Yorkers often say that you shouldn’t look up – you’ll look like a tourist! – it was impossible not to. High above, the cherry trees were putting on a show. Tiny blossoms, the color of a flushed cheek, spurted forth from delicate limbs, spreading sideways in an ethereal embrace of spring. In hot pursuit were the daffodils below, drifts of sunshine dancing through the park.
I thank Mother Nature for spring’s soft landing in one of the prettiest parks I know.
Here’s a poem by William Wordsworth, to welcome spring, to show any vestiges of winter the door, to usher in a sprig of hope.
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:
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