I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth

[conuly]

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.

It's easy for Wordsworth to dance with the daffodils, I bet he wasn't the one who had to dig them up and divide them later!

Comments

[rebeccmeister]

This is one of my favorite poems, hehe.

[adafrog]

Good.

lolol

[calimac]

I can't resist:

How sweet to be a Cloud
Floating in the Blue!
Every little cloud
Always sings aloud.

How sweet to be a Cloud
Floating in the Blue!
It makes him very proud
To be a little cloud.

[oursin]

Stephen Collins cartoon: The daffodils address Wordsworth.

I am still rather chortling over Norma Clarke's burn in Ambitious Heights of Wordsworth and his household of women running around attending to his every wish pretty much before he expressed it.

The poet, the poet's work, the poet's admirers, the poet's children, the poet's clothes. all the constituents of the poet's day were the business of four women. Wordsworth's achievement in making wives of four unusual and gifted women remains quite a remarkable one.