Hermetic Poetry

I love translating poems I like on this blog, I really do. Translating is one of the most complicated jobs, because you have to help authors touch foreign readers the way they did with natives. Dealing with emotions is always challenging in itself. 

Italian hermeticism is obscure and difficult poetry, as of the Symbolist school, so it gets even more changeling because of the language and imagery that are subjective, and because the suggestive power of the sound of words is as important as their meaning. But Quasimodo is one of my favorites, I can't limit you with this joy to miss his little masterpieces of sophisticated style and abstruse symbolism.

So here I try ...

SUNKEN OBOE

Stingy pain, delay your gift
in this hour of mine
of whispered leave.

A cold oboe flutes
joy of perennal leaves,
not mine, and confuses;

It is evening in me:
the water goes down
on my grassy hands.

Wings oscillate in a dim sky,
labile: the heart migrates
and I feel rough,

and the days are a ruin.


IMITATION OF JOY

Where the trees still
make the nigh more abandoned,
the indolent last last step you took vanished
and it appears when the flower
limes and insists on its fate.

One reason for looking for affection,
experiencing silence in your life.

Another adventure reveals
this mirrored time. It mourns
like death, like beauty now
lightning in other faces.
I have lost every innocent thing,
even in this voice, surviving
to imitate joy.

ALLEY

Sometimes your voice calls me
and I forget that skies and waters
wake up in me:

a network of sunlight reflects
on your walls that were in the evening
a swing of lamps
late in the workshops
full of wind and sadness.

In another time: a frame pounding in backyard
and a cry was heard in the night
of puppies and children.

Alley: a cross of houses
that are called floor
and they do not know who is afraid
of being alone in the dark.

And then, my favorite: 

And then my favorite of all: 

MIRROR

And here on the trunk
the gems break:
a green newer than the grass
that rests the heart:
the trunk looked already dead,
folded on the ditch.
And everything sounds like miracle;
and I am that cloudy water
that reflects in bluer its piece of sky,
that green that breaks the zest
that even tonight was not there.

 

And

And then you realize she's growing, and you wonder if your relationship with her will be as intense and unique as it is now. And you hope she'll go through phases but never throw you aside. 

And you know you'll always do your best to chaperon her through life, because the adult she'll become depends so much on you. And this is all that counts in the end. Blood and future that irreversibly becomes past and laughter and sacrifice and all that love. Yes, all that love.

Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid
My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle
But Gregory's wood and one bare hill
Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind,
Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;
And for an hour I have walked and prayed
Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.

I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour
And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower,
And under the arches of the bridge, and scream
In the elms above the flooded stream;
Imagining in excited reverie
That the future years had come,
Dancing to a frenzied drum,
Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.

May she be granted beauty and yet not
Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught,
Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,
Being made beautiful overmuch,
Consider beauty a sufficient end,
Lose natural kindness and maybe
The heart-revealing intimacy
That chooses right, and never find a friend.

Helen being chosen found life flat and dull
And later had much trouble from a fool,
While that great Queen, that rose out of the spray,
Being fatherless could have her way
Yet chose a bandy-leggd smith for man.
It's certain that fine women eat
A crazy salad with their meat
Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone.

In courtesy I'd have her chiefly learned;
Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned
By those that are not entirely beautiful;
Yet many, that have played the fool
For beauty's very self, has charm made wise,
And many a poor man that has roved,
Loved and thought himself beloved,
From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.

May she become a flourishing hidden tree
That all her thoughts may like the linnet be,
And have no business but dispensing round
Their magnanimities of sound,
Nor but in merriment begin a chase,
Nor but in merriment a quarrel.
O may she live like some green laurel
Rooted in one dear perpetual place.

My mind, because the minds that I have loved,
The sort of beauty that I have approved,
Prosper but little, has dried up of late,
Yet knows that to be choked with hate
May well be of all evil chances chief.
If there's no hatred in a mind
Assault and battery of the wind
Can never tear the linnet from the leaf.

An intellectual hatred is the worst,
So let her think opinions are accursed.
Have I not seen the loveliest woman born
Out of the mouth of Plenty's horn,
Because of her opinionated mind
Barter that horn and every good
By quiet natures understood
For an old bellows full of angry wind?

Considering that, all hatred driven hence,
The soul recovers radical innocence
And learns at last that it is self-delighting,
Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,
And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will;
She can, though every face should scowl
And every windy quarter howl
Or every bellows burst, be happy still.

And may her bridegroom bring her to a house
Where all's accustomed, ceremonious;
For arrogance and hatred are the wares
Peddled in the thoroughfares.
How but in custom and in ceremony
Are innocence and beauty born?
Ceremony's a name for the rich horn,
And custom for the spreading laurel tree. June 1919 

"A Prayer for my Daughter", William Butler Yeats

Daily Essence

I'm shooting a lot these days, using different lenses and new methods. The course helped me gain a new photographic perspective and opened up unexplored zones in my creativeness. The complexity of technique intimidated me a bit in the beginning, but the more I feel confident, the more I let myself go.

I've always thought that writing and photography are parallel, photos allow me to be more incisive because a neat combination of different elements in the same image communicates better. Images touch the soul more directly and immediately. 

I just need to be on the costant lookout so that things just come to me. Sometimes they're there, ready to be captured. Maybe around the corner of your neighborhood. This is some of my result. Ladies and gentleman, please enjoy the essence of early Spring.

A gentle spring evening arrives
airily, unclouded by worldly dust.
Three times the bell tolls echoes like a wave.
We see heaven upside-down in sad puddles.
Love's vast sea cannot be emptied.
And springs of grace flow easily everywhere.
Where is nirvana?
Nirvana is here, nine times out of ten.

"Spring-Watching Pavilion", Ho Xuan Huon
 

The bird has come
to bring light to birth.
From every trill of his,
water is born.

And between water and light which unwind the air,
now the spring is inaugurated,
now the seed is aware of its own growing;
the root takes shape in the corolla,
at last the eyelids of the pollen open.

All this accomplished by a simple bird
from his perch on a green branch.

"Spring" by Pablo Neruda

Spring in Izola, Si

Ghost song

Awake.
Shake dreams from your hair
my pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
the day's divinity
First thing you see.


A vast radiant beach and cooled jeweled moon
Couples naked race down by it's quiet side
And we laugh like soft, mad children
Smug in the wooly cotton brains of infancy
The music and voices are all around us.


Choose they croon the Ancient Ones
the time has come again
choose now, they croon
beneath the moon
beside an ancient lake


Enter again the sweet forest
Enter the hot dream
Come with us
everything is broken up and dances.


Indians scattered,
On dawn's highway bleeding
Ghosts crowd the young child’s,
Fragile eggshell mind


We have assembled inside,
This ancient and insane theater
To propagate our lust for life,
And flee the swarming wisdom of the streets.


The barns have stormed
The windows kept,
And only one of all the rest
To dance and save us
From the divine mockery of words,
Music inflames temperament.


Ooh great creator of being
Grant us one more hour,
To perform our art
And perfect our lives.


We need great golden copulations,


When the true kings murderers
Are allowed to roam free,
A thousand magicians arise in the land
Where are the feast we are promised?

One of the more incisive poems I've ever read, possibly. Jim may be derivative (William Blake is the guru he openly admitted to take inspiration from) but his creativity and sincerity, even in hiw wrong doings,  contributed to music a lot. And to the world in general, let me add.

source

My parents met and lived the debut of their toxic relationship in the 60's, unaware of how Jim was devastating America with his scandals. The innovative sound of his band was spreading around the globe but wasn't certainly my parents theme. When Oliver Stone's movie became so popular, dad decided to come with me to the theater to see what the fuss was all about. It was 1991, the peak of highest popularity in the band's post fame history. Many people started to listen to The Doors after getting intrigued by Val Kilmer's sexy interpretation of the King of Lizards.

Of course I was happy to go with dad. We had never done anything like that. At that time I still admired him for being responsible of my confident ego. Still, I wanted to disappear from the face of earth when Pam - Meg Ryan went down on Jim -Val Kilmer trying to improve his voice abused by alcohol whilst he was recording in the studio. I sooo wanted to be alone or with some friends, like anybody else my age (who the hell goes watch such movies with a parent after all? What was I thinking?) rather than being there feeling so terribly embarassed.

Then I glanced at his face, a mixture of awe, admiration and extreme curiosity. He wasn't shocked at all. And I immediately knew why. He hadn't come to finally do something with his daughter. How silly of me to hope that after so many years of negligence. He just wanted to understand what he lost. And judging from his dreamy interest, I'm sure he was trying to figure out how he could catch up with his years wasted listening to melodic Italian pop. 
 
The vortex of destructive choices in which he ended up to be in the following years were only just a confirmation of how I was right that night. I think he took Jim's teaching literally.  

"If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it's to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel." Jim Morrison

Too bad Jim didn't have kids and dad didn't even notice. Maybe it could have made a difference. 

One more thing

Thank you oh lord

For the white blind light

Thank you oh lord

For the white blind light

A city rises from the sea

I had a splitting headache

From which the future's made

Details of Beauty

My house is a mess, I barely talk to my husband and child and live up on cloud number 9 more than ever these days, but at least I do what I like: writing! And here I'm sharing with you a poem I came up with. Enjoy and comment!

Details have no life outside of their tiny space, no resemblance.
They have no memory, like people whom nobody has ever helped to wipe a tear.
Sometimes they hide behind a smile.
Others nature camouflages them, so their indifference rebels.
And their silence cries to free them from their hiding corner, before the earth forgets them.

This was meant to illustrate the 5 pics I have to show for my second project at the photo class this coming Thursday. Each sentence illustrates one image.

What do you think?

The original version is in italian, which I think is more intense and moving. For those of you who can understand my language, here you go:

I dettagli non hanno alcuna vita al di fuori del loro spazio angusto, nessuna somiglianza.
Sono senza memoria, come persone cui nessuno ha mai asciugato una lacrima.
A volte si nascondono dietro un sorriso.
Altre la natura li camuffa, loro così ribelli all'indifferenza.
Ed il loro silenzio grida di essere strappato dal loro nascondiglio solitario, prima che la terra li dimentichi.

And here's the Spanish version too, gentle courtesy of my special friend Lorena from Chile (now a proud Dutch expatriate):

Los detalles no tienen vida fuera de su pequeño espacio, no hay semejanza.
Ellos no tienen memoria, como las personas a quienes nunca alguien ha ayudado a limpiar una lágrima.
A veces se esconden detrás de una sonrisa.
A otros los camufla la naturaleza, así su indiferencia se rebela.
Y su silencio grita para liberarlos desde su rincón escondido, antes de que la tierra se olvide de ellos.

Now I know whom I can trust and commission the translation of my books when I'll be a published writer, hey! :) 

About poems

I've always admired Carlo Betocchi's poetry. His personal struggle with faith and loneliness, that marked the last years of his life, talks to all our senses. I always reconcile with calm and simple values of life when I read his works, maybe effect of his universal acclaimed "Franciscan vision of a natural world sleeped in the divine." (credits)

source

I've also always admired the way he was able to express himself away from the civil engineering field that was his daily job. It's so flourishing that, whilst building canals, roads and bridges, he had so much to say in art at the same time.

Please be delighted by his personal mix of realism and visionary power. I translated two of his favorite poems of mine for you to enjoy. You welcome!

To himself

Sleep, what sleep was, returns
to stalk you and denies you the light,
terminates where you are, advances where
you are not, your denial
your presence climb upon
the plant of the existence,
the silence of sleep, that word
word that did not dare to call
and that was lying in you, will lie, will
be your natural essence, life like death,
death like life, embraced to the eternal.

I have no more than the difficulty of a life
that is passing, and that by losing its flower
puts up thorns and not leaves, and barely
breathes. Yet, without bitterness.
There's that love hidden in me,
the more miserably modest,
that hint of earth, which resists,
like in the bare fields: a wealth
created, not mine, unquenchable.
Not even the most cultivated, perhaps, but true
existence; as it seems lost
in the cosmos, with its gravity, its laws,
its dying magnetism, not forgotten
by the Soul, but it is actually numbered.
Do not blame me, I am old,
but in my stony silence listen to
how love trills, how fierce it is.

About loneliness

I do not need anything
but you, loneliness;
high, solemn, immortal,
where nothing is but a dream.

In this desert
I wait for the the relentless
coming of a living water
to certainly make me.
 
If the sun
or the unmoved moon triumph
their lumen flows 
like my heart wishes.
 
And I enjoy the brown
land, and the indestructible
certainty of its stuff
already in the greenhouse of my heart:

and I understand that life
is this, deep
light shining in heaven
full of infinite pity.

Hills and fields

A little complement to my post of yesterday. I like to think that I'll return to my land in peace one day, and that I will be able to enjoy its memories without sorrows!

You too are hill ... 

(Cesare Pavese)

You too are hill
and path of stones
and play in the reeds,
and you know the vineyard
that is silent at night.
You do not say words.
There's a land that is silent
and it's not your land.
There is a silence that lasts
on plants and hills.
There are water and fields.
You are a closed silence
that does not give up, you're lips
and dark eyes. You are the vineyard.
It's a land that awaits
and does not say a word.
Days have passed
under burning skies.
You played with the clouds.
It's a bad ground
and your forehead knows that.
This is vineyard too.
You'll find the clouds again
and the reed, and the voices
like a shadow of the moon.
You'll find the words
beyond the short life
and night games,
beyond vivid childhood.
Silence will be sweet.
A vivid silence
will burn the fields
like bonfires in the evening.

30-31 October 1945

(Another humble translation of mine)

To Autumn

Autum has finally arrived. Abruptly and drastically, but it's here. And I'm ready to enjoy every minute of it!

I CRIED over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.

The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.

The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind, and the old things go, no one lasts. 

'Autumn Movement' by Carl Sandburg

PS: I didn't post much because I hosted my dear friend Lisa from London for a couple of days and then we went to Verona together for the weekend. I shall be back to you later on with enchanting stories about my little getaway, which is also the first one ever without my daughter. Come visit again if you want to hear more!

Sonnet LXIX

Maybe nothingness is to be without your presence,
without you moving, slicing the noon
like a blue flower, without you walking
later through the fog and the cobbles,

without the light you carry in your hand,
golden, which maybe others will not see,
which maybe no one knew was growing
like the red beginnings of a rose.

In short, without your presence: without your coming
suddenly, incitingly, to know my life,
gust of a rosebush, wheat of wind:

since then I am because you are,
since then you are, I am, we are,
and through love I will be, you will be, we'll be.

Pablo Neruda

Feast of colors

Back from our Easter Tour de Force. Warm weather and sunshine made it possible to explore Vienna, about which I'm writing a travelogue. I'll post it soon. I was amazed by its grandeur and can't wait to share it here.

In the meanwhile, flowers continue blooming, temperatures begin to rise, making me feel more energetic. I just love Spring now! It's a feast of colors and fragrances everywhere ...

 

"The flower is the poetry of reproduction. It is an example of the eternal seductiviness of life." Jean  Giraudoux

I wish I could have a garden and plant my own seeds, then sit there and spend uncountable hours reading and playing with my daughter undisturbed. "I'd rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck" (Emma Goldman), right? Maybe one day ...

Words

source

Words

if awaken

refuse to seat

in their favorite place, the paper,

the Chinese ink, the leather

or velvet folder,

where they can be a secret;

words

when they wake up

rest on the back

of invoices, on margins

of Bingo bullettins,

on wedding or funeral invitations;

words

don't ask anything better than

a confusing typing on a laptop,

the dark pockets of a coat,

the base bin,

where they end in chopped pieces;

words

are not happy

to be thrown out

and accepted

with the fury of applause

and disgrace;

words

prefer to sleep

in a bottle,

to be read, sold,

embalmed, hibernated;

words

belong to everyone

and they don't hide in dictionaries,

because there is always someone who

finds the most smelling 

and rarest truffles;

words

after an eternal wait

abandon hope

to be spoken

once and for all

and then die

with those who possessed them.

My humble attempt at translating one of my favorite poems of Eugenio Montale, called Le Parole. He's a darkly resonant and introspective poet, therefore difficult to interpreter. For more poems, explore his style here.

Mario Luzi

Is it just me?

Or am I dead?

There's someone else,

master of these fields.

Universe. Approval.

Or maybe none of this.

The radiant silence

full of love, 

full incarnation 

anticipated by a light.

I wonder

if this is thinking

or sleeping

during a sunny break

and the turmoil of today.

via camaleonte.blogosfere

PS: This poet is responsible for encouraging me to be a writer. He selected the poem I sent to his annual Poetry Competition for High School students back in 1987. Me and the other 49 winning authors were sent to a formative 5-days trip to Florence. It was not only my first award as a writer, but also my first confrontation with the world as a a teen. Thus I'll always be greateful to Mr Luzi. RIP, man. You don't even imagine how much trust, respect and self-esteem you instilled in myself. 

(To be mandatory read while listening to With or Without you, the soundtrack of that trip!) 

The extraordinary poet

"I wake up in great shape and then people deform me."

This is one of the quotes of Alda Merini that I find memorable. People have this ability to  mess you up if you let them, it's true. Nobody like her knew more. She lived a tormented life, visiting the darkest and saddest places of human life, asylum, but never stopping drawing beauty and poetry from her history of suffering and marginalization.

For her, the bad part of life was to be accepted. I heard her say on  TV that life speaks and that we neeed to let it talk and listen to it. Thus, we better not discuss which side the evil comes from, so that it can turn into a hot outfit, and then poetry for some of us. Only in this way the subject becomes fire, fire of love for others. 

I tenderly loved some very sweet lovers
without them knowing anything about.
And I wove spiderwebs from this
and I always feel prey to my own creation.
In me there was the soul of the prostitute
of the saint of the one who lusts for.
Many people gave a label to my way of life
and all that while I was only an hysteric

- via princeton.edu

I have great difficulty in accepting things as they are.  And even if I understand why it is, I don't embrace it. Reading Alda's poetry helped me to understand things are only negative if you see it as negative. If you judge it as bad. “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Someone so universally recognized like Shakespeare quoted the same concept before (in Hamlet, by the way), then the root of unhappiness isn't necessarly that we want things to be different. It's that we decided we don't like it in the first place.

I often repeat to myself
that I should live with memories
only when I'l have a few days left.
The past is a string that
tightens the throat of my mind
and takes my energies away.
The past is just smoke
of those who haven't lived.
What I have already seen
means nothing.
The past and the future
are not reality but only fleeting illusions.
I have to get rid of time
and live the present because it doesn't exist other
than this wonderful moment.

I like Alda's poems because they're so confessional but mengled with history and myth at the same time. From the teen years writing mature poems and dating older poets to the convenient marriage, passing through different internments in mental hospitals, she always had this profund sense of her place in the world. And this probably saved her from madness or suicide. 

What I also like about her is that fame didn't shake her. She lived in her usual house,  messy and chaotic. She didn't care much to live as normal. Her presence and her life were the essence of her poetry. 

View more pics of her house

I do not need money.

I need of feelings

words, words chosen wisely

flowers called thoughts,

roses called presences

dreams upon trees,

songs that make statues dance,

stars that wishper in lovers ears. 

I need poetry

this magic that burns the weight of words

that awakes emotions and gives new colors.

Alda passed away last year, at 78, after a long battle with cancer. She's probaby enjoying herself in hell now, as she used to say “I don’t like paradise as they probably don’t have obsessions there” (Aphorisms). In 2004 she asked for a “hot man” as a seventy-third birthday present. She got, and enjoyed, a visit from a stripper Ghibly. Now, isn't this living coherently until the end?

Infinite

Original manuscript

These solitary hills have always been dear to me.
Seated here, this sweet hedge, which blocks the distant horizon opening inner silences and interminable distances.
I plunge in thought to where my heart, frightened, pulls back.
Like the wind which I hear tossing the trembling plants which surround me, a voice from the inner depths of spirit shakes the certitudes of thought.
Eternity breaks through time, past and present intermingle in her image.
In the inner shadows I lose myself,
drowning in the sea-depths of timeless love. 

Infinite  by Giacomo Leopardi

Poetry Corner

A Pity, We Were Such A Good Invention

They amputated
Your thighs off my hips.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all surgeons. All of them.

They dismantled us
Each from the other.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all engineers. All of them.

A pity. We were such a good
And loving invention.
An aeroplane made from a man and wife.
Wings and everything.
We hovered a little above the earth.

We even flew a little.

I love this poem, and I dedicate it to whom knows why. It's intimate, alive, innovative, charged with metaphor and yet remarkably concrete. Yehuda Amichai is a great contemporary poet. Whoever translated his innovative use of language did a really good job.

Bye Bye Summer!

Poor summer, it doesn't know it's dying.
A few days are all it has. Still, the lake
is with me, its strokes of blue-violet
and the fiery sun replacing loneliness.
I feel like an animal that has found a place.
This is my burrow, my nest, my attempt
to say, I exist. A rose can't shut itself
and be a bud again. It's a malady,
wanting it. On the shore, the moon sprinkles
light over everything, like a campfire,
and in the green-black night, the tall pines
hold their arms out as God held His arms
out to say that He was lonely and that
He was making Himself a man.
 

-Henri Cole 

 Taken from my kitchen yesterday at 1.20 pm

Back Yard

Shine on, O moon of summer.
Shine to the leaves of grass, catalpa and oak,
All silver under your rain to-night.

An Italian boy is sending songs to you to-night from an accordion.
A Polish boy is out with his best girl; they marry next month;
    to-night they are throwing you kisses.

An old man next door is dreaming over a sheen that sits in a
    cherry tree in his back yard.

The clocks say I must go—I stay here sitting on the back porch drinking
    white thoughts you rain down.

    Shine on, O moon,
Shake out more and more silver changes.

by Carl Sandburg

PS: another cool way to illustrate images is with poems!

run elda run

I'll sing it one last time for you
Then we really have to go
You've been the only thing that's right
In all I've done

And I can barely look at you
But every single time I do
I know we'll make it anywhere
Away from here

Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear

Louder louder
And we'll run for our lives
I can hardly speak I understand
Why you can't raise your voice to say

To think I might not see those eyes
Makes it so hard not to cry
And as we say our long goodbye
I nearly do

Light up...

Slower slower
We don't have time for that
All I want is to find an easier way
To get out of our little heads

Have heart my dear
We're bound to be afraid
Even if it's just for a few days
Making up for all this mess

good bye abruzzo!

summer is here

A languid atmosphere, a lazy breeze,
With labored respiration, moves the wheat
From distant reaches, till the golden seas
Break in crisp whispers at my feet.

My book, neglected of an idle mind,
Hides for a moment from the eyes of men;
Or lightly opened by a critic wind,
Affrightedly reviews itself again.

Off through the haze that dances in the shine
The warm sun showers in the open glade,
The forest lies, a silhouette design
Dimmed through and through with shade.

A dreamy day; and tranquilly I lie
At anchor from all storms of mental strain;
With absent vision, gazing at the sky,
"Like one that hears it rain."

The Katydid, so boisterous last night,
Clinging, inverted, in uneasy poise,
Beneath a wheat-blade, has forgotten quite
If "Katy DID or DIDN'T" make a noise.

The twitter, sometimes, of a wayward bird
That checks the song abruptly at the sound,
And mildly, chiding echoes that have stirred,
Sink into silence, all the more profound.

And drowsily I hear the plaintive strain
Of some poor dove . . . Why, I can scarcely keep
My heavy eyelids--there it is again--
"Coo-coo!"--I mustn't--"Coo-coo!"--fall asleep! 

 A Summer Afternoon by James Whitcomb Riley 

 

 

source

william wordsworth

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 a 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 leaves 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 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.