I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth

Full Text

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.

Overview

The most anthologized poem in English literature is also one of the most misread. It's not really about daffodils—it's about memory. The actual encounter takes three stanzas; the fourth stanza, written from a couch years later, is where the poem lives. Wordsworth's radical claim: experience matters less than recollection. The flowers become "wealth" only in retrospect.

Line-by-Line Analysis

Lines 1-6

"Lonely as a cloud" seems melancholy but clouds float freely. The daffodils appear suddenly ("all at once")—nature interrupts solitude.

Lines 19-24

The crucial stanza: years later, lying on his couch, the daffodils "flash upon that inward eye." Memory transforms experience into permanent joy.

Themes

• Memory as creative act
• Solitude and companionship
• Nature as spiritual renewal
• The value of recollection

Literary Devices

Personification

Daffodils "dancing," "tossing their heads" — The flowers become a "crowd," a social gathering that relieves the speaker's loneliness.

Simile

Lonely as a cloud, continuous as stars — Natural comparisons place the speaker within the landscape rather than observing it.

Historical Context

Based on a walk Wordsworth took with his sister Dorothy in 1802. Her journal entry describes the scene; his poem appeared five years later. Dorothy's prose is arguably more vivid—Wordsworth's contribution is the fourth stanza's meditation on memory.