Uploaded on August 4, 2011
Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room;
and hermits are contented with their cells;
and students with their pensive citadels;
maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,
sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,
high as the highest Peak of Furness-fells,
will murmur by the hour in floxglove bells:
in truth the prison, into which we doom
ourselves, no prison is: and hence for me,
in sundry moods, ’twas pastime to be bound
within the Sonnet’s scanty plot of ground;
pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be)
who have felt the weight of too much liberty,
should find brief solace there, as I have found.
—William Wordsworth
The Giant Book of Poetry
edited by William H. Roetzheim
08.04.2023: Foxgloves are not my favorite. The not-quite-open blooms remind me of Lady Slipper Orchids, but I prefer the orchids. I have light pink foxgloves out front now, but they really should get moved behind flowers that would keep much of their long, gangly stems concealed.