No time to stand and stare

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xyi4rnNkGaw










W. H. Davies

Leisure

WHAT is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?—
No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

The sun has finally come out and I went into the garden just to survey what hasn't been done over the past few soggy, cold months. The garden is six weeks behind where it should be, so the confusion it's causing the bees is a worry.


As I was standing and staring at the garden and wondering how to get the old man to do the jobs, I remembered the poem 'Leisure' and was convinced it was by Wordsworth. The old man said I was muddling it up with 'A host of golden daffodils'. After I had told him how clever he was and if only I had a memory like his and how strong he was etc etc, well he was putty in m'hands... Simples.

W. Wordsworth

The Daffodils

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.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd 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 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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