I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

William Wordsworth(1770–1850)

Poems, 1815

I wandered lonely as a CloudThat 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 shineAnd twinkle on the milky way,They stretched in never-ending lineAlong the margin of a bay:Ten thousand saw I at a glance,Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but theyOut-did the sparkling waves in glee:—A Poet could not but be gayIn such a jocund company:I gazed—and gazed—but little thoughtWhat wealth the shew to me had brought:

For oft when on my couch I lieIn vacant or in pensive mood,They flash upon that inward eyeWhich is the bliss of solitude,And then my heart with pleasure fills,And dances with the Daffodils.

From Poems (1815), via the English Wikisource transcription. This is the four-stanza 1815 version; the 1807 first printing had three.

Public domainThis poem is in the public domain. You may read it, copy it, recite it and publish it without asking anyone.

About the poem

Wordsworth wanders «lonely as a Cloud» and suddenly comes upon a crowd of golden daffodils beside the lake, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. The poem counts them in the thousands, like the stars of the Milky Way, in a joy so contagious that even the waves seem to envy it.

But the essential thing comes at the end, and it is memory: when the poet lies on his couch «in vacant or in pensive mood», the daffodils flash again upon «that inward eye / Which is the bliss of solitude», and his heart dances with them once more. Nature not as spectacle, but as something kept within that consoles long after.