Daffodils by William Wordsworth
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.
Ira Maine, Poetry Editor, has this to say:
William Wordsworth, (1770-1850) the future English Poet Laureate, was born in the county of Cumberland which encompasses part of the magnificent Lake District. Himself, Coleridge and Robert Southey made up a group who came to be known as the Lake Poets whose avowed aim was poetry written as close to the natural patterns and rhythms of speech as possible.
This is a fine time of year for this poem, just as the daffodils burst into flower. Wordsworth is out for a country ramble and happens on a splendid, almost endless display of daffodils-
‘…beside a lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze…’
He gazes…and gazes…. enraptured by this Milky Way of yellow and white.
‘… they flash upon the inward eye, that is the bliss of solitude…’