Nature

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

by William Wordsworth 1770–1850

NatureThe Mind

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
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
Out-did 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.

✦ ✦ ✦

Memory, not the flowers, is the poem’s real subject. The crowd of daffodils returns to Wordsworth ‘in vacant or in pensive mood’ — proof of his belief that poetry begins in emotion recollected in tranquillity.

MLA

Wordsworth, William. “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/wordsworth/0/.

Chicago

Wordsworth, William. “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/wordsworth/0/.

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