I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud (Wordsworth)

For Wordsworth’s entire poem, click here for the Poetry Foundation website. Below is the poem’s first and last stanza.



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….

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.

Photo: Daffodils in Chapel Hill, NC 2020.