By Robert Scott

All writers in Op Ed are here to inform and acknowledge issues of importance to our communities, however these writings represent the views and opinions of the authors and not necessarily of The Advertiser.

Singing in the Church Choir is one of the joys of my life, but like so many joys in the Years of COVID-19, it is one that has been suspended. Those who know me best know that, this year in particular, my bent would be more toward singing hymns in a minor key. Dancing would be out of the question. But a light is beginning to glimmer at the end of the tunnel in many,many ways. The pandemic is ever so slowly loosening its grip on all of us, the economy is beginning to pick up, and nature is again showing its ever-beauteous hand. We may have temporarily forgotten how to sing and how to dance; but nature has not. Here is a poem I’m running for the third consecutive year, because it is so appropriate as March begins in Edgefield County, this and every year.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

By William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

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.