I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
- 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
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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.
Footnotes
Wordsworth composed this poem from his sister Dorothy’s journal entry which described the walk they both took around Glencoyne Bay, Ullswater in England. The poem describes how the daffodils that the poet saw at a bay reminds him of the bliss of solitude and fills his heart with pleasure. It means that you can be mesmerized by the beauty of nature around you if you take a pause to appreciate it. Sometimes, you need to be like clouds, which may seem lonely, but are also free if you change your perspective – free to admire the dancing daffodils. Read more on Wikipedia.
The poem is also commonly referred to as “The Daffodils”.