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Richard Walker

I wandered lonely as a celandine

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One of my interests is wild flowers. Here a picture I took of celandines outside the front of my house. The celandine is one of my favorite flowers and there are hosts of them where I live.

Not a lot of people know that Wordsworth wrote a poem "The Lesser Celandine" about this flower. Personally I think it's rather dull and I can see why it's less well known than Wordsworth's other flower poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud", alias "Daffodils".

Although the latter is one of the most famous poems in the English language it's never really attracted me. I much prefer Herrick's "To Daffodils"

Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
         You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
         Has not attain'd his noon.
                        Stay, stay,
                Until the hasting day
                        Has run
                But to the even-song;
And, having pray'd together, we
Will go with you along.

 

I think that's a beautiful evocation of the transitory nature of things.

 

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