Time for some poetic praise for primrose
THE thing that first struck me about Wicklow last weekend was the primroses, and if Wordsworth had seen them before the daffodils, the course of history might well have been changed.
‘A host of golden primroses’ does not have the same ring to it, but it certainly made a similar impression on me, much like the walk which so inspired the poet as he wandered lonely.
Actually, he was not lonely as he had his sister with him at the time, but as his poem was voted the fifth most popular in the UK of all time, I suppose I should let him off.
The inspiration for the poem came from a walk Wordsworth took with his sister Dorothy around Glencoyne Bay, Ullswater, in the Lake District.
He would draw on this to compose ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’, in 1804, inspired by Dorothy’s journal entry describing the walk...
‘When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow park we saw a few daffodils close to the water side, we fancied that the lake had floated the seed ashore and that the little colony had so sprung up – but as we went along there were more and yet more and at last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road.
‘I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about and about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness and the rest tossed and reeled and danced and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the Lake, they looked so gay ever glancing ever changing.
‘This wind blew directly over the lake to them.
‘There was here and there a little knot and a few stragglers a few yards higher up but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity and unity and life of that one busy highway – We rested again and again’.
Just exchange the daffs’ for primroses, primular vulgaris, and you will get the picture of my walk in Wicklow, all the hedgerows, field boundaries and borreens were covered in the yellow beauties, the sun was shining, the lakes glistening, the history shouting out in the form of round towers, standing stones and monuments, and then with a flash of red my friend Joanie spotted a red kite.
Add into the mix the Wicklow Mountains, Glendalough and the Wicklow Gap, oh and the Guinness and bacon ribs, and readers will hopefully understand why I need to continue this story next week.