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I remember cruising upriver onboard the Zephyr. I used to hang out after watch with Captain Vic in the wheelhouse. He taught me how to pilot the river. Captain Vic used to recite poetry as I'd steer up the mighty Mississippi River at dawn. I had never really been into literature, but Captain changed this. Vic was born and raised in the Cayman Islands. I just cannot forget his deep Caribian accent as he read from a old green and yellow hardback book.

He knew one particullar poem by heart that he had learned as a young boy growing up on the islands. After a brief return to the Red Rocket last summer, Captain Vic informed me that he and his wife have a e-mail addess. Months later I contacted them and asked them about that particular poem that he would recite. In a reply back, they sent the poem and here it is.

"The Daffodils"

by William Wordsworth (04-07-1770 to 04-23-1850)

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and fills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils:

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed-and gazed-but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

Captain Vic Bodden of the mighty Zephyr

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