Article April 4, 2011 Issue

Dancing with daffodils

Andrew Wilson

With spring now upon us in the Northern Hemisphere, my thoughts have been turning again to Wordsworth’s well-loved poem “Daffodils,” which has always delighted me.

The founder of this magazine, Mary Baker Eddy, loved poetry, quoted it often, and wrote many poems herself, some of which have enriched the Christian Science Hymnal. She regarded a love of poetry, and a sense of the poetic, as natural to us all as reflections of divine Mind. In Science and Health she wrote: “Mind is not necessarily dependent upon educational processes. It possesses of itself all beauty and poetry, and the power of expressing them” (p. 89).

Some years ago poetic feelings within me became so strong that I found myself writing poetry, and had some of it accepted for publication. But those humble outpourings were but lispings compared with the powerful and moving eloquence of poets such as Wordsworth, who has inspired generations. To me, lines like “And then my heart with pleasure fills, / And dances with the daffodils,” are the acme of poetic expression.