Lost and Lonely

I set out on my cross country skis with a snippet of a Wordsworth poem. (The poem is actually set in spring—see full version below—but the opening lines seemed to belong to the wide and empty expanse of a golf course off-season.)

I got my close-in shot:

But when I backed off for the long shot, my camera battery died. So I went back the next day, found the same tree but no poem.

Maybe another skier took it. Or else it’s floating from snow drift to snow drift, waiting for spring, waiting to be discovered by a golfer searching for a lost ball.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
By William Wordsworth
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.