sweet mood

It was freezing cold today, but so clear and pretty. The train ride home was nice.

I didn't consider the weather when I moved to Japan and it's been the most pleasant surprise. The amount of sun I've seen this year is astounding (I'm from Oregon, though).

I had such a relaxing day. I substituted at a junior high, just grading speeches until 3PM. I was in the mood for nature poetry. I've barely studied Wordsworth at all! It's absurd. The preface to Lyrical Ballads had a predictably terrific effect on me, so I don't know how I've neglected everything else he did. I love Dorothy Wordsworth, his sister. She kept beautiful journals, and her descriptions of the landscapes they traveled through fed his poetry. So far I've been much more absorbed in her journals than his poems. But today I got into "Lines Written in Early Spring" so maybe I'll have a W. Wordsworth phase now.

I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts

Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.