Pujit Aggarwal Redivivus - Daffodils

 

  All of us who have had some exposure to English poetry must possess the whole or part of the poem by heart. There are a multitude of flowers more eye-catching than daffodils, but Wordsworth, in his short poem, virtually immortalises their vivacity and splendour.

  There was a very intimate correlation between walking and creativity. Wordsworth’s affinity with nature in all its multifarious forms was different from an instinctive engagement with nature exemplified by several poets before and after him. Wordsworth’s equation with nature is endowed with awe, mystery, reverence, and an awareness of the power we associate with the pervasive transcendence of divinity. Nature manifests itself as a stern, moral disciplinarian as well as a nurse, a nanny, and a playmate.

  The poet sketches out the spectacular beauty and vitality of daffodils in four stanzas of six lines each. The alternating rhymes close with a nifty rhymed couplet. During a solitary, brooding walk, he suddenly beholds a panorama of golden daffodils. Their allure casts a spell on him. He presumably slows down his walk, even suspending its progress transitorily, to drink in the display of animal spirits: the daffodils are fluttering, tossing their heads, and dancing in the breeze.

  The word ‘lonely’ in the first line does not merely denote solitary' in its primary meaning; it also connotes a hint of pensiveness or a low mood that has overcast the poet’s mind. The abrupt swerve—the sight of the animated exuberance of daffodils—acts as an antidote to loneliness. In fact, the last stanza acknowledges and celebrates the reminiscence of this experience as a nourishing tonic for the spirit. The lassitude that clouded his mood before dissipates, giving way, thanks to the mediation of exultant daffodils, to enduring bliss to be embedded in memory as a handy restorative.

For example, when on my couch, I lie.
In a vacant or pensive mood,
They flash into that inward eye.
What is the bliss of solitude?
And then my heart is filled with joy.
And dances with the daffodils.

  Wordsworth was born and bred in the Lake District, which nature has blessed with lakes like Ullswater, Grasmere, and Windermere and endless swathes of greenery punctuated with mountains, hills, rivers, and lush valleys. His poetry is a distillation of his implicit interface with the geography of the terrain that constitutes the canvas as well as the colour of his oeuvre.

One impulse from a vernal wood may teach you more about man.
more moral evil and good than all the sages can.
 

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