Hard rain and daffodils

A gray day...but, strangely enough, a gray day 

makes the bunches of daffodils in the house have a particular radiance, 

a kind of white light. 

From my bed this morning 

I could look through at a bunch in the big room, 

in that old Dutch blue-and-white drug jar, and they glowed. 

I went out before seven in my pyjamas, 

because it looked like rain, 

and picked a sampler of twenty five different varieties.*

It is the moment now. Daffodils, many different kinds,

are glorious, in spite of a whole day of hard rain and wind...

It is the moment because the leaves on the trees have not yet sprung, 

so the light and blue sky shine through feathery, just swelling twigs. 

The structure is still visible and that is what gives the effect of stained glass.

* Two extracts from Journal of a Solitude - May Sarton

entries for May 15th and 16th written in Nelson, New Hampshire.

So I mustn't complain about this late cold, wet Spring -

she had another seven weeks to wait.