Sixty-One Daffodils

Sixty-One

Daffodils

5 August 1824

This will be my last entry in this journal until my new one in September.  I may not be able to find scraps of paper between now and then to write on.  Maybe I will make more of an effort to be conversational with people around me.  I have been too introspective, perhaps.

John is making a trip to Mobile on behalf of Mr. Robert Jemison.  It will take him away from me for two months at least.  Boat travel on the Alabama will not be easy; he had to turn around the last time he tried.  It is a marvelous business opportunity, though, and one that may lead to further business with Mr. Jemison.  The latter is a large planter with many holdings.  I believe that John can be of great help to him as a blacksmith, as a carpenter, and as a field hand of course; but now he can prove himself as an agent.  I also think that Mr. Jemison will be a future investor in John's inventions.

I hope, of course, that such an opportunity will provide him with the means to support a family, and thus remove the only obstacle that I can think of to not be married.  Oh! Is it so wrong of me to think thus?  For although I believe that Nan was engaged quite hastily, I am thinking that John is taking a little long.  However,  I do think that he is a loving, conscientious man, and wants to be able to provide for me comfortably.

He gave me this poem to contemplate whilst he is gone.  From Wordsworth, of course.  I love the visual references to the daffodils; this truly makes me happy.  I think that he gave it to me because he once was lonely (and so was I), and he no longer need be, whether he and I are with each other, or whether we have the fond memories of each other.

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 daffodil