I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud (William Wordsworth)

William Wordsworth

• William Wordsworth was born on 7 April 1770 in Cockermouth in Cookson. His sister, poet and diarist Dorothy Wordsworth, to whom he was close all his life, was born the following year. All of his siblings were destined to have successful careers. His elder brother Richard became a lawyer in London; John Wordsworth rose to the rank of Captain on a merchantman of the East India Company; and the youngest of the family, Christopher, became Master of Trinity College at Cambridge.Cumberland. The second of five children born to John Wordsworth and Ann.

• After the death of their mother in 1778, their father sent William to Hawkshead Grammar School and sent Dorothy to live with relatives in Yorkshire. She and William did not meet again for another nine years. His father died when he was 13.

• Wordsworth made his debut as a writer in 1787 when he published a sonnet in The European Magazine. That same year he began attending St John's College, Cambridge, and received his B.A. degree in 1791. He returned to Hawkshead for his first two summer holidays, and often spent later holidays on walking tours, visiting places famous for the beauty of their landscape. In 1790, he took a walking tour of Europe, during which he toured the Alps extensively, and also visited nearby areas of France, Switzerland, and Italy. His youngest brother, Christopher, rose to be Master of Trinity College.

• William Wordsworth (7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850) was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their 1798 joint publication, Lyrical Ballads.Wordsworth was England's Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850.

I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud

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.

Continous 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 littla thought
What wealth the snow to me had brought:

Foe oft when on my couch 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.

First stanza:

The poet describes a time when he walk over the valleys and hills, "lonely as a cloud." Finally, he came across a crowd of daffodils stretching out over almost everything he could see, "fluttering and dancing in the breeze".

Second stanza:

The poet describes more detail about the daffodils. They reminded him of the Milky Way, because there were so many flowers packed together that they seemed to be never ending. The speaker guesses that there were ten thousand daffodils, which were "Tossing their heads in sprightly dance".

Third stanza:

The poet compares the waves of the lake to the waves of daffodils and decides that even though the lake is "sparkling," the daffodils win because they have more "glee." He then comments that he could not help but be happy "in such a jocund company." He looked at the scene for a long time, but while he was there he was unable to understand what he had gained from the experience.

Fourth stanza:

The poet describes what he gained from the experience. Afterwards, when he was lonely or feeling "pensive," he could remember the daffodils, seeing them with his "inward eye," and be content.