“I often come here,” he said. “Whenever the doldrums of depression fall heavy on my countenance.”
“You’re very lucky,” said Polly. “We have to rely on Name That Fruit!!”
“Name That Fruit?”
“It’s a quiz show. You know. On the telly.”
“Telly?”
“Yes, it’s like the movies but with commercials.”
He frowned at her without comprehension and looked at the lake again.
“I often come here,” he said again. “Whenever the doldrums of depression fall heavy on my countenance.”
“You said that already.”
The old man looked as though he were awakening from a deep sleep.
“What are you doing here?”
“My husband sent me. My name is Polly Next.”
“I come here when in vacant or pensive mood, you know.”
He waved a hand in the direction of the flowers.
“The daffodils, you understand.”
Polly looked across at the bright yellow flowers, which rustled back at her in the warm breeze.
“I wish my memory was this good,” she murmured.
The figure in black smiled at her.
“The inward eye is all I have left,” he said wistfully, the smile leaving his stern features. “Everything that I once was is now here; my life is contained in my works. A life in volumes of words; it is poetic.”
He sighed deeply and added:
“But solitude isn’t always blissful, you know.”
He stared into the middle distance, the sun sparkling on the waters of the lake.
“How long since I died?” he asked abruptly.
“Over a hundred and fifty years.”
“Really? Tell me, how did the revolution in France turn out?”
“It’s a little early to tell.”
Wordsworth frowned as the sun went in.
“Hello,” he muttered, “I don’t remember writing that—”
Polly looked. A large and very dark rain cloud had blotted out the sun.
“What do you—?” she began, but when she looked around Wordsworth had gone. The sky grew darker and thunder rumbled ominously in the distance. A strong wind sprang up and the lake seemed to freeze over and lose all depth as the daffodils stopped moving and became a solid mass of yellow and green. She cried out in fear as the sky and the lake met; the daffodils, trees and clouds returning to their place in the poem, individual words, sounds, squiggles on paper with no meanings other than those with which our own imagination can clothe them. She let out one last terrified scream as the darkness swept on and the poem closed on top of her.