The world came to a stop this week. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, many  people lost their jobs.  Almost everything that makes life interesting is closed.  Restaurants, libraries, theaters and concerts, to name a few.  The streets are deserted. The only  way to  socialize with other humans in the outside world is at the grocery store or pharmacy.  We try to keep our spirits up, but the uncertainty is nerve wracking. When will it all end? And yet, today, I looked out the window and my heart soared at  the first signs of spring.  Blooming daffodils bring hope to these dark days of quarantine.

Daffodils are a special gift from nature.  Just when we’ve tired of winter’s barren landscape,  the friendly little flowers appear on a warm, sunny day in March.  Yes, it may get cold again. It may even snow again. But the daffodils will tough it out and remind us that better days are coming.

I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud, was written in 1804 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 shew 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.

Daffodils are a sign of hope and rebirth.  Like the dark days of winter, the coronavirus epidemic won’t last forever.  This great nation will endure and prosper.