In this coming week, we who live in the earth’s Northern Hemisphere, move from the season of Winter to that of Spring.
The Spring equinox is often known as the ‘Astronomical’ Spring to differentiate it from the ‘Meteorological’ Spring which is used by weather forecasters and is always on March 1st. The season of Spring generally falls on either March 20th or 21^st (19^th in a Leap Year) This year it is on March 20^th.
Nature, however, prefers to set its own time and has already begun showing growth from the earth; songs from the birds and a gentle ‘greening’ of the leaves as trees create a dusting of new life.

One of the most important signs is the arrival of spring flowers, especially the Daffodil which symbolises re-birth and hope. The poet, Cecil Day-Lewis, calls the ‘full-throated’ daffodil, “our trumpeters of gold” which “call resurrection from the ground.” 
This association with Easter has also led to daffodils being called ‘Lenten Lilies’ because they tend to flower in the period between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday.
(Sometimes they naughtily come too early for church flower displays when Easter Day is late!)

The most famous poem about the Daffodil begins with the words, “I wandered lonely as a cloud” which begins the Daffodil poem by William Wordsworth.
It drew its inspiration from his sister, Dorothy, with whom he took a walk around the Lake District on the 15^th April, 1802. We know the exact date and the detail of the journey from  Dorothy’s diary, published later as her ‘Grasmere Journal’.
Intrepid walkers, Dorothy wrote that the weather was threatening, misty but mild’, though the wind was ‘furious’. She described the walk in great detail including avoiding some cows! She noted the flowers they saw along the way – wood sorrel, anemone, scentless violets and a starry yellow flower known locally as pile wort. When they got to woods beyond Gowbarrow they saw a few wild daffodils close to the water-side and Dorothy then wrote in her journal:

“as we went along there were more and yet more; and at last, under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road.
I never saw daffodils so beautiful. They grew among the mossy stones about and above them; some rested their heads upon these stones, as on a pillow, for weariness; and the rest tossed and reeled and danced, and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind, that blew upon them over the lake; they looked so gay, ever glancing, ever changing.

It has been suggested that it was these words which inspired her brother, William, to write his own poem in praise of daffodils. The sentiments and imagery expressed by Dorothy are certainly traceable in his poem.
William became famous and eventually Poet Laureate whilst Dorothy was all but forgotten at the time but there are some who would suggest that his daffodil poem might constitute plagiarism!
What can be certainly said is that between them they helped to make the Daffodil become a joyful sign of Spring and of Resurrection. [Mr G]

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.

[William Wordsworth]