Soon it will be spring, and the spring flowers will appear in our gardens and in the countryside. Among these will be the daffodils, which are yellow, trumpet shaped flowers, which many people grow in their gardens, but which also grow in the wild. William Wordsworth wrote a famous poem about seeing wild daffodils beside a lake.
It begins like this:
I wander’d 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.
William Wordsworth lived in the early 19th century, in the Lake District, an area of mountains and lakes in the north west of England. At that time, most people thought of the Lake District as a wild and unhospitable place. But for Wordsworth, as for most people today, the Lake District is the most beautiful part of England.
Here is how the poem ends:
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.
The music today is Spring Song by Frank ridge, played by the Brunswick Duo.