The first and only poem that I memorized was William Wordsworth's I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud (1804) when I was ten. The funny thing about memorizing things when you are at that age is that they remain crystal clear in your mind some twenty plus years later. It is kind of amazing really.

I think it was easy to remember this poem because it is so well written and it moves you. At least, it moved me.

I always loved this part -

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.

I loved how he described the 'inward eye' and your experience. I felt he had read my mind.

I thought then that everyone engaged in deeper thought and feeling like he described. I was a little disappointed later when I met people who did not know the reference and did not understand or care for what it meant.

I realized that the inner world of the imagination that is so blissful too and freely takes from your memory and crafts anew, is valuable only to some. But the effectiveness of literature lies not only in its immediate impact but also in its endurance. Wordsworth wrote a poem that affected a little girl almost two hundred years later.

I think too today that while the vast inner world brings me and I know so many others great joy and a personal, private happiness - being able to share that with others is a gift.

I guess that is what this period in my life is all about. : D