A host of golden daffodils

The woodland floors and beck-sides in Cumbria are now bursting into bloom with carpets of daffodils. Not the big gaudy hybrid daffodils seen in parks and gardens, but the original small wild variety that inspired William Wordsworth to compose his eponymous poem.

These are not any old daffodils. These are wild Cumbrian daffodils blooming at my research site at Roudsea Woods and Mosses National Reserve. They are Wordsworth's daffodils

I wander'd 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 stretch'd 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
Outdid 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.

W. Wordsworth