stanza being a complete unit in the development of the thought. THE SOLITARY REAPER Behold her, single in the field, Alone she cuts and binds the grain, No Nightingale did ever chaunt A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard Will no one tell me what she sings?- Or is it some more humble lay, Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang I listened, motionless and still; William Wordsworth (1770-1850) The last stanza of "The Solitary Reaper" expresses, with especial reference to things heard, the chief value of experience. "I Wandered Lonely" bears witness to a similar benefit and delight derivable from things seen. What would be the value of a visit to the Grand Canyon, of spending an hour in Westminster Abbey, or of witnessing a performance of Hamlet, if no mental impression were carried forward into the rest of life? Culture is in part, at least―the result of a number of such impressions. Herrick's "To Daffodils," Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely," and Austin Dobson's "To Daffodils" are an interesting trio of poems. Herrick sees only the frail duration of the daffodil to which he compares human life. For Wordsworth the daffodils afford a dual pleasure: the joy of beholding, the satisfaction of philosophizing remembrance. Dobson, consciously sophisticated, refers not only to the daffodils, but to his poet predecessors who drew inspiration from them. In reading these poems it is perhaps stimulating to bear in mind the possibility that the greatest poem on the theme is yet unwritten. Wordsworth owed an immeasurable debt to his wife and to his sister Dorothy. Mrs. Wordsworth composed the third and fourth lines of the last stanza of "I Wandered Lonely." We quote the account from Dorothy's journal of the incident which inspired the poem: "We saw a few daffodils close to the water-side. But as we went along there were more and yet more; and at last, under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore. They grew among the mossy stones, about and about them; some rested their heads upon these stones, as a pillow, for weariness; and the rest tossed and reeled and danced, and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake. . . they looked so gay, ever glancing, ever changing." I WANDERED LONELY I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Continuous as the stars that shine The waves beside them danced; but they In such a jocund company: I gazed and gazed-but little thought For oft, when on my couch I lie And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils. William Wordsworth (1770-1850) In its treatment of the flower, the above poem is essentially modern, as are, for instance, Bryant's "To the Fringed Gentian" and Emerson's "The Rhodora." From the latter we quote: Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, With "I Wandered Lonely" let us compare Waller's "Go, Lovely Rose," a poem which exhibits a preWordsworthian interpretation of floral loveliness. Two widely known American poems of this type are "The Wild Honeysuckle" by the Revolutionary poet Philip Freneau, and "My Life Is Like the Summer Rose," by another politician poet, Richard Henry Wilde. Herrick's "To Daffodils" has already been mentioned. The last two lines of the poem below may be seen at Charlottesville, Virginia, engraved on the tomb of a Miss Maude Woods, who won a prize for beauty at the PanAmerican Exposition (Buffalo, 1901) and died within a year. GO, LOVELY ROSE! Go, lovely Rose! Tell her, that wastes her time and me, When I resemble her to thee, How sweet and fair she seems to be. Tell her that's young And shuns to have her graces spied, In deserts, where no men abide, Small is the worth Of beauty from the light retired: Suffer herself to be desired And not blush so to be admired. Then die! that she The common fate of all things rare How small a part of time they share Edmund Waller (1606-1687) In the following poem the author has received his impression not from a singer, not from a flower or a bed of flowers, but from a bird outlined in flight against the sunset. Bryant's poetry was largely the product of his youth. In later life he was editor of the New York Evening Post and for a while before his death was commonly regarded as America's "first citizen." TO A WATER-FOWL Whither, midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, |