Daffodils: a poet could not but be gay*

A cold, cold, March in Birmingham ... unlike the milder ones of recent years ... and, the daffodils are late. Oh, it's cold and gloomy here. Just over 200 years since William Wordsworth wrote this memorable poem:

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.

* The word in its dominant use in England for its first 400+ years following its arrival from France: bright, lively, excited, high spirits ... See here.

You probably couldn`t have played bear, but you played bare very well

From Mark Twain's autobiography, which can be found here.

III

... This was in 1849. I was fourteen years old, then. We were still living in Hannibal, Missouri, on the banks of the Mississippi, in the new "frame" house built by my father five years before. That is, some of us lived in the new part, the rest in the old part back of it -- the "L." In the autumn my sister gave a party, and invited all the marriageable young people of the village. I was too young for this society, and was too bashful to mingle with young ladies, anyway, therefore I was not invited -- at least not for the whole evening. Ten minutes of it was to be my whole share. I was to do the part of a bear in a small fairy play. I was to be disguised all over in a close-fitting brown hairy stuff proper for a bear. About half past ten I was told to go to my room and put on this disguise, and be ready in half an hour. I started, but changed my mind; for I wanted to practice a little, and that room was very small. I crossed over to the large unoccupied house on the corner of Main and Hill streets,(1) unaware that a dozen of the young people were also going there to dress for their parts. I took the little black slave boy, Sandy, with me, and we selected a roomy and empty chamber on the second floor. We entered it talking, and this gave a couple of half-dressed young ladies an opportunity to take refuge behind a screen undiscovered. Their gowns and things were hanging on hooks behind the door, but I did not see them; it was Sandy that shut the door, but all his heart was in the theatricals, and he was as unlikely to notice them as I was myself.

That was a rickety screen, with many holes in it, but as I did not know there were girls behind it, I was not disturbed by that detail. If I had known, I could not have undressed in the flood of cruel moonlight that was pouring in at the curtainless windows; I should have died of shame. Untroubled by apprehensions, I stripped to the skin and began my practice. I was full of ambition; I was determined to make a hit; I was burning to establish a reputation as a bear and get further engagements; so I threw myself into my work with an abandon that promised great things. I capered back and forth from one end of the room to the other on all fours, Sandy applauding with enthusiasm; I walked upright and growled and snapped and snarled; I stood on my head, I flung handsprings, I danced a lubberly dance with my paws bent and my imaginary snout sniffing from side to side; I did everything a bear could do, and many things which no bear could ever do and no bear with any dignity would want to do, anyway; and of course I never suspected that I was making a spectacle of myself to any one but Sandy. At last, standing on my head, I paused in that attitude to take a minute`s rest. There was a moment`s silence, then Sandy spoke up with excited interest and said --

"Marse Sam, has you ever seen a smoked herring?"

"No. What is that?"

"It`s a fish."

"Well, what of it? Anything peculiar about it?"

"Yes, suh, you bet you dey is. Dey eats `em guts and all!"

There was a smothered burst of feminine snickers from behind the screen! All the strength went out of me and I toppled forward like an undermined tower and brought the screen down with my weight, burying the young ladies under it. In their fright they discharged a couple of piercing screams -- and possibly others, but I did not wait to count. I snatched my clothes and fled to the dark hall below, Sandy following. I was dressed in half a minute, and out the back way. I swore Sandy to eternal silence, then we went away and hid until the party was over. The ambition was all out of me. I could not have faced that giddy company after my adventure, for there would be two performers there who knew my secret, and would be privately laughing at me all the time. I was searched for but not found, and the bear had to be played by a young gentleman in his civilized clothes. The house was still and everybody asleep when I finally ventured home. I was very heavy-hearted, and full of a sense of disgrace. Pinned to my pillow I found a slip of paper which bore a line that did not lighten my heart, but only made my face burn. It was written in a laboriously disguised hand, and these were its mocking terms:

"You probably couldn`t have played bear, but you played bare very well -- oh, very very well!"

We think boys are rude, unsensitive animals, but it is not so in all cases. Each boy has one or two sensitive spots, and if you can find out where they are located you have only to touch them and you can scorch him as with fire. I suffered miserably over that episode. I expected that the facts would be all over the village in the morning, but it was not so. The secret remained confined to the two girls and Sandy and me. That was some appeasement of my pain, but it was far from sufficient -- the main trouble remained: I was under four mocking eyes, and it might as well have been a thousand, for I suspected all girls` eyes of being the ones I so dreaded. During several weeks I could not look any young lady in the face; I dropped my eyes in confusion when any one of them smiled upon me and gave me greeting; and I said to myself, "That is one of them," and got quickly away. Of course I was meeting the right girls everywhere, but if they ever let slip any betraying sign I was not bright enough to catch it. When I left Hannibal four years later, the secret was still a secret; I had never guessed those girls out, and was no longer expecting to do it. Nor wanting to, either.

One of the dearest and prettiest girls in the village at the time of my mishap was one whom I will call Mary Wilson, because that was not her name. She was twenty years old; she was dainty and sweet, peach-bloomy and exquisite, gracious and lovely in character, and I stood in awe of her, for she seemed to me to be made out of angel-clay and rightfully unapproachable by an unholy ordinary kind of a boy like me. I probably never suspected her. But --

The scene changes. To Calcutta -- forty-seven years later. It was in 1896. I arrived there on my lecturing trip. As I entered the hotel a divine vision passed out of it, clothed in the glory of the Indian sunshine -- the Mary Wilson of my long-vanished boyhood! It was a startling thing. Before I could recover from the bewildering shock and speak to her she was gone. I thought maybe I had seen an apparition, but it was not so, she was flesh. She was the granddaughter of the other Mary, the original Mary. That Mary, now a widow, was up-stairs, and presently sent for me. She was old and gray-haired, but she looked young and was very handsome. We sat down and talked. We steeped our thirsty souls in the reviving wine of the past, the beautiful past, the dear and lamented past; we uttered the names that had been silent upon our lips for fifty years, and it was as if they were made of music; with reverent hands we unburied our dead, the mates of our youth, and caressed them with our speech; we searched the dusty chambers of our memories and dragged forth incident after incident, episode after episode, folly after folly, and laughed such good laughs over them, with the tears running down; and finally Mary said suddenly, and without any leading up --

"Tell me! What is the special peculiarity of smoked herrings?"

It seemed a strange question at such a hallowed time as this. And so inconsequential, too. I was a little shocked. And yet I was aware of a stir of some kind away back in the deeps of my memory somewhere. It set me to musing -- thinking -- searching. Smoked herrings. Smoked herrings. The peculiarity of smo.... I glanced up. Her face was grave, but there was a dim and shadowy twinkle in her eye which -- All of a sudden I knew! and far away down in the hoary past I heard a remembered voice murmur, "Dey eats `em guts and all!"

"At -- last! I`ve found one of you, anyway! Who was the other girl?"

But she drew the line there. She wouldn`t tell me.

If my friends could see me now

An interesting programme on Cy Coleman which I saw on 19 January on BBC4. What a talent. Eleven Broadway musicals and worked with the great lyricist Dorothy Fields. It shows through in this song from 'Sweet Charity':

Tonight at eight you shoulda seen
A chauffeur pull up in a rented limousine!
My neighbors burned! They like to die!
When I tell them who is gettin' in and goin' out is I!
If they could see me now,
That little gang of mine,
I'm eating fancy chow
And drinking fancy wine.
I'd like those stumble bums to see for a fact
The kind of top drawer, first rate chums I attract.
All I can say is "Wow-ee!
Looka where I am.
Tonight I landed, pow!
Right in a pot of jam.
What a set up! Holy cow!
They'd never believe it,
If my friends could see me now!
If they could see me now,
My little dusty group,
Traipsin' 'round this million dollar chicken coop.
I'd hear those thrift shop cats say:
"Brother, get her!
Draped on a bed spread made from three kinds of fur."
All I can say is, "Wow!
Wait till the riff an' raff
See just exactly how
He sign this autograph."
What a build up! Holy cow!
They'd never believe it,
If my friends could see me now!
If they could see me now
Alone with Mister V.,
Who's waiting on me like he was a maître d'
I'd hear my buddies saying:
"Crazy, what gives?
Tonight she's living like
The other half lives!"
To think the highest brow,
Which I must say is he,
Should pick the lowest brow,
Which there's no doubt is me!
What a step up! Holy cow!
They'd never believe it,
If my friends could see me now!
What a step up! Holy cow!
They'd never believe it...
They'd never believe it,
If my friends could see me now
Hi, girls it's me, Charity!

Some interesting phrases: - holy cow (I think Robin, in Batman, used this a lot); riff and raff (makes a change from riff-raff); top drawer; stumble bums - well, I've never heard that one before.