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,…..  

“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” The poem, ‘The Daffodils’, by the renowned Romantic poet, William Wordsworth, is a mysterious blend of Nature and philosophy.

……I gazed – and gazed – but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

Often, described as the Nature poetry, the daffodils are seen as an object of beauty that showers happiness in solitude. Indeed, for a school going kid, the poem is an excellent tool that subtly encourages visualisation.

Very recently I laid my hands on a collection, ‘Select English Poems’, compiled by A. Parthasarathy, an acclaimed exponent of Vedanta (Vedanta is an ancient Indian philosophy). The Preface to the book states that the select poems convey great human values, and “it ushers you to the goal of Self-realistion.”

And, there was ‘The Daffodils’, a path to spiritual Enlightenment!

According to the spiritual analysis of  ‘The Daffodils’,   “encompasses the three disciplines followed by meditation: karma (action), bhakti (devotion), and jnana (knowledge).

I stop to re-read the poem again. May be, the poet was a spiritual seeker engaged in selfless services, detached from the worldly pleasures, and who experienced Universal love, “the essence of devotion”. May be, his awareness gained him the Universal knowledge of Oneness.

May be, it was his self realisation that filled contentment.

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.

I am left wondering.