April 3, 2021
FLOW1
What’s the surest sign that Spring has arrived? For many New Canaan residents, it’s the emergence of daffodils that signals winter is behind us.
Sometimes referred to as Lent lilies, daffodils have started to bloom alongside roads, in the community’s many parks, and in flower beds throughout New Canaan.
During the past week’s warm and sunny days, large clumps of the flowers began pushing out of soil and reaching for the sunlight. With rain in the forecast for the next few days, an amazing bloom awaits when the area gets another blast of warm weather.
Here’s a William Wordsworth poem titled I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud that describes the beauty of blooming daffodils. The poem was first published in 1807 and was once a staple for high school English and literature students.
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 the 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 of 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.