Daffodils (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 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. 

Note:  the flowers in the above pictures are actually jonquils, but they look like tiny daffodils, don't they?  The little girl is Aravis, lo, these many years ago...

This is the kind of teacher I want to be.

(h/t Ann Voskamp)

Quotes on Understanding (or not)

Negative Capability:  when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason (Keats, excerpted from a letter)

"A work of (whatever) art may be 'received' or 'used'.  When we 'receive' it we exert our senses and imagination and various other powers according to a pattern invented by the artist. When we 'use' it we treat it as assistance for our own activities."  --C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism (quoted in All God's Children and Blue Suede Shoes, pages 89-90)

"It is not necessary to understand."  --one of the Three Wise Men to the Little Drummer Boy

I'm not sure how these fit together, but they keep bumping into each other in my mind, so I'm parking them here.