The Joy of Celebrating the Season with Poetry

How exciting to wake up to a new month, a new season and a feast day!

Today is St.Davids Day, the patron saint of Wales. I think I might make potato and leek soup for lunch and a daffodil cake if I have time - Tuesday's are busy in my home so I'm not sure I will be able to do it today - perhaps on the weekend :)

I'm so excited that Spring is here! It's rather dreary and wet in Devon today but it doesn't dampen my spirits at all - we are one step closer to longer and warmer days. 

I have created a new journal page in my nature journal to celebrate March, I love how it turned out. The daffodils are in bloom everywhere at the moment, perfect to herald the Easter celebrations later on in the month. For me Easter is tied up with daffodils, spring blossoms and baby lambs and rabbits - new life all round.

I love William Wordsworth's poem 'Daffodils', and have copied it into my nature journal and I will share it here too:

I wondered 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

Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;

A poet could not be but 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 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.

Don't the words of the poem just lift your spirits? They do mine. As a writer I have quite an imagination and there are always pictures in my mind that accompany words. 

For this poem I can just imagine being a bird, soaring through the air with only the sound of the air rushing by filling my hears. The sun overhead warming my back, the ocean below, deep blue and glittering in the sunlight. The ocean meets towering white cliffs - so famous in England - or perhaps the wild grass-topped cliffs of Cornwall.

As I stretch out my wings and watch life going on below, my eye is caught by fields of yellow and gold. Daffodil heads swaying gently in the breeze, lifting their joyous faces towards the sun. What joy fills my heart, I can hardly tear my eyes away from such a magnificent spectacle.

Photo Credit: John Saddington published in the Daily Mail

And then we look at the last verse of the poem. How true the poets sentiments! I can recall many times in my life when a scene of beauty that I have once immersed myself in has 'flashed upon that inward eye'. As soon as the memory is recalled, the scene once again made firm, I am transported back to that place. The feeling of peace and joy that one feels when close to nature and God fill my heart once again.

Poetry is so expressive and just wonderful to read. I am so glad that we have read poetry together during our schooling days, that we have included it into our nature journals. I believe that it has added a richness to our learning and to us as individuals.

It's really so easy to add poetry to your schooling week, I think that I will do a post soon on how to include Charlotte Mason style poetry to your homeschooling, it really does not have to be difficult and complicated. But enough about that. I hope you all have a wonderful day wherever you are ;)