 |
| Narcissus - 20 March 2007 |
How the Waters closed above Him – Emily Dickinson -923
How the Waters closed above Him
We shall never know—
How He stretched His Anguish to us
That—is covered too—
Spreads the Pond Her Base of Lilies
Bold above the Boy
Whose unclaimed Hat and Jacket
Sum the History—
Today I was wanting to find out how daffodil translated into Spanish. I was surprised (and my Rosemary could have told me) that it is narciso. Narcissus is the correct botanical name for the daffodil.
One you know this it is then possible to find scads of poems about one or the other. One of my faves is the one above by Emily Dickinson in which she connects narcissus with the beautiful young man of Greek Mythology. In our present 21st century the word narcissistic has become a most negative epithet.
I looked around the garden and I did not see one single yellow daffodil. I wonder what Rosemary may have done with them?
I have been transferring all my plant scan Tiffs from my computer into double exterior hard drives. I believe that my plant scans may be valuable for, at the very least, scientific reasons. I have scanned the plants from our garden since 2001 and I always scan them in 100% size and date them. I do my best to make sure the colours are accurate.
While storing these scans I found I had some daffodils from March 20 2007. The scan is quite lovely.
It is beautifully strange that while Rosemary loved blue I see in these yellow flowers a soft and small smile that was uniquely hers.
And the last paragraph of William Wordworth’s I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud is awfully nice.
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.
