Question

from settled in the wild
it is a rainy morning, the first week of may, good weather to plant vegetables. i sit on the porch steps with rubber boots on, a baseball cap, and a box, holding the packages of seeds i bought at the feed store in town yesterday. the rain is steady and cold, the light is steel - gray, and the yard is patchy and wet, but the pictures on the packages vibrate with color. nothing looks as good as these post - turn flowers right now: deep red, eye - jolting orange, electric yellow.
absent - mindedly, i begin to recite william wordsworths \i wandered lonely as a cloud\ to myself. i have known the poem by heart ever since my father taught it to me when i was a child.
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.
wordsworths inward eye saw daffodils. i say the poem and see hummingbirds. the nourishment is for them, and planting the flowers is my gesture of faith that they will come back to my yard once more. as i rip open the packages and push the seeds into the dirt, i know that these tiny creatures, each of whom weighs only a few grams - about the weight of four or five of these seeds - have already whirred in erratic flocks across five hundred miles of open water, running the gulf of mexico in a twenty - four - hour feat.
hummingbirds do exactly what physiologists once insisted they could not do. a bird that weighs 3 grams can, without a refueling stop, go from the yucatan to the coast of the us. maybe it needs to get across all that water. a dot of a bird cannot afford to be distracted, should burn up and fall like a cloud of cinders. but now we know that they can carry the fat they need, and they do. instead of burning up they land in the azalea gardens of the south, pooped, drooped, and alive. and another spring has begun.
the ruby - throated is the only species of hummingbird that always turns east, north as far as maine. one thousand miles to sunny maine. they will be exhausted but for heat and the sweet profusion of flowers. their fall migration is but a reverse of this, back to central america, but it astonishes me every time. i watch them come and go, and every time i am filled with wonder.
this question has two parts. answer part a, and then answer part b.
part a
how does the phrase \they are my daffodils, these birds\ in paragraph 15 best help develop the ideas in the passage?

1. the phrase illustrates that many different aspects of nature are fascinating to the author.
2. the phrase compares the flowers to the birds, as they both signal a change of season to the author.
3. the phrase shows how the author has made the wordsworth poem a meaningful part of daily life.
4. the phrase indicates that the birds are a source of joy for the author, as the flowers were for wordsworth.

part b
which excerpt from the passage best supports the correct answer from part a?

1. \i have known the poem by heart ever since my father taught it to me\ (paragraph 2)
2. \i say the poem and see hummingbirds.\ (paragraph 3)
3. \planting the flowers is my gesture of faith\ (paragraph 3)
4. \and another spring has begun.\ (paragraph 5)

Explanation:

In Part A, the phrase "They are my daffodils, these birds" shows that the birds bring the author joy similar to how daffodils brought joy to Wordsworth, indicating the birds are a source of joy for the author. In Part B, "I say the poem and see humming - birds" connects the author's experience with the poem and the presence of birds, supporting the idea that the birds are a joy - bringing element as in Part A.

Answer:

Part A: 4. The phrase indicates that the birds are a source of joy for the author, as the flowers were for Wordsworth.
Part B: 2. "I say the poem and see hummingbirds."