tags: I wandered lonely as a cloud, William Wordsworth, poetry, National Poetry Month
April is National Poetry Month, and I plan to post one poem per day, every day this month (If you have a favorite poem that you'd like me to share, feel free to email it to me).
I wandered lonely as a cloud (The Daffodils)
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.
-- William Wordsworth, The Complete Poems (Wordsworth Editions Ltd; 1998).
I think the title should be "Daffodils".
hrm. interesting. i've read that it goes by either title.
Oh noes, another bold tag has escaped!
My first thought on seeing this poem was "aargh!". I've had too many holidays as a kid in the Lake District. My parents even moved there when they retired. The tourist board make a big thing of this (as well as Beatrix Potter).
Yes, a lovely poem. However, as one who grew up on Mad magazine of the 50's & early 60's and who has a memory like a garbage can, I can't resist ...
I memorized it in order to annoy my mother, who admired Daffodils.
With apologies ...