In my young adult life ‘I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud’ was my favorite piece of poetry. Even though I teach science, sometimes I find a way to wander back to it during the course of a workday.
For example:
In a particularly brilliant moment of lecture in one of my science classes today, I asked my students what they were reading in English class. I wanted to make the point that analogous structures in biology are similar to analogies. (I know! My students were all super impressed and interested.)
Sidenote:
For those of you who have not been exposed to high school vocabulary in the last 20 years:
Analogous Structures: organs that look different but serve the same function in different organisms. For example a fly and a bat both have wings but a fly’s wings are made of chitin and a bat’s wings are made of skin and bones.
Analogies: a comparison between one thing and another, typically during an explanation. For example, you can make an analogy between the human heart and a pump.
I learned two things:
1) I’m not super clear on the difference between an analogy and a metaphor. (It seems a little complicated, and hey-I’m a science teacher)
2) My students are reading Romeo and Juliet.
In a flash of inspiration, I looked up Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18. The kids just smiled politely and waited for me to get back to the point, but the gentle, lyrical sway of “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day…” stayed with me through the afternoon (though I am still not clear if that would be a metaphor or a simile).
When I’d muddled through enough thoughts on the Bard, my mind eventually turned to my favorite poem of all time. I used to read it every night with my father, right after an equally delightful (but slightly less “timeless”) poem about chocolate milk.
Words below. Happy Monday!
I wandered lonely as a cloudThat 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.
Thanks to C Dustin on Unsplash for the banner photo.