St. David's Day

[Julius]

(Just in case my American cousins do not know - Saint David is the patron saint of Wales, the daffodil is recognised as the national flower, and St. David's Day is celebrated on March 1st )


St. David’s Day

In Wales I wandered as allowed
Down the valleys, up the hills.
When all at once I saw a crowd,
Of Welshmen wearing daffodils;
Outside the pub, under the trees,
Singing and dancing in the breeze.
And as they sang with eyes a-shine
As brightly as the Milky Way,
They formed themselves into a line
And marched around Old Cardiff Bay.
Then as if they were in trance
They broke into a sprightly dance.
The waves beside them in the bay
Danced and rolled in sympathy.
A poet, be he straight or gay,
Would enjoy such company.
I stayed and gazed and then I thought
What joy this show to me had brought.
And now when on my bed I lie
I say “Now think about it Dude,
If you're blue no need to sigh;
Relive this in your solitude”.
And then my heart with pleasure fills
With Welshmen wearing daffodils.

(With thanks to William Wordsworth for his inspiration  )

[ellajam]

Lovely, great image and fun to read. I especially like these lines:

Then as if they were in trance
They broke into a sprightly dance.
The waves beside them in the bay
Danced and rolled in sympathy.

Not as successful as the rest were these lines:

A poet, be he straight or gay,
Would enjoy such company.
I stayed and gazed and then I thought
What joy this show to me had brought.

Straight or gay sounds forced for the rhyme, why would it matter? The rest resorts to twisted inversions and stands out as forced compared to the rest of the piece which reads so naturally. I'm sure you could do better here because you have.

[Magpie]

Excellent. This made me smile. I like the way you've managed to interweave the Wordsworth poem throughout and give a different slant on some of the images. For that reason I think the, "A poet, be he straight or gay," line is fine in its reference to the original Wordsworth line of, "A poet could not but be gay", and this line was the one that made me laugh out loud, otherwise I would agree with Ella "Why would it matter?", but here it works.
That being said, I think it would be best to include a footnote referencing the Wordsworth poem because as well as being an obvious influence there are certain lines that are exactly the same as in the Wordsworth poem, just in case someone thinks that it's plagiarism.
The one line that didn't work for me was, 'I say “Now think about it Dude', because of that word 'Dude', it just doesn't seem to fit in with the rest of the poem. I know it's a tough one because you need to find a rhyme with 'solitude', but...

I am a Geordie and there's an old Geordie joke that goes,

A man walks into a barbers and asks for a perm.
And the barber says, "I wandered lonely as a cloud..."

If you're not British then you will not have the slightest clue what I'm on about.
Cheers for the read, much enjoyed,

Mark 

[ellajam]

Thanks, Mark, I'm less well read than most and didn't have a clue, I just enjoyed the poem on its own. I'm off to read the Wordsworth.

edit: Yep it sounds familiar when I read it now, the host of daffodils, and I get the gay line now, fine play, thanks for the help.

[Julius]

Thank you both for reading and your thoughtful comments.
Although this is just a fun piece, I really admire Wordsworth's poem and felt I would like to copy his form and use as many of his rhyming words as possible. Wordsworth was a famous British poet and I think every British child has read "Daffodils" at school. Maybe the linkage between my parody and the original might not be so obvious in the US and other countries outside the British Isles. I agree I'd better give WW some credit