Daffodils and Doubting Thomas



It’s April, but it doesn’t quite feel like spring yet.  Sure–spring is coming–everyone knows that, but it’s still more like a promise than a reality at this point, which I have found quite discouraging of late.  But, today, this poem by Wordsworth came in my inbox; and as I was leaving for church this morning [to hear more about the joyfully realized promise of Easter Sunday that even Thomas gets to see and feel], I looked at my own daffodils–themselves “dancing” in today’s strong winds–and I realized that they are trustworthy witnesses to the promise of spring.  And even if spring feels a tantalizing way off just yet, it will arrive–my daffodils are proof. And I felt a little better. 

Sometimes you just have to agree with Thomas–seeing is believing, and I can never fault him for wanting signs of warmth and new life that he can touch, especially when good news seems so far away. 


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
   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.

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