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.
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
Nancy Young: I am an omnivore as a reader… My mother was amazingly well-read, but her love of literature was based on her father’s (a former Prime Minister of Korea) reading list. He was educated at Edinburgh University so of course he loved Wordsworth, Yeats, Oscar Wilde, and Keats. And so did I, growing up in Tokyo and Hawaii. Needless to say, I was considered to be an odd child. My children can recite I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud and many other poems from that era. I may have produced another generation of very strange children.
[A touch of humor and nostalgia, perhaps, from Julie Sullivan: If you add Lonely as a Cloud, you have to include Bullwinkle’s version! I always think of it when I remember that poem. In March of 2009 (I think) my younger son and I drove through the Lake District and came across the very field of daffodils that had inspired Wordsworth to write his poem, all in bloom, and all to ourselves! I wish I could find the photo. We stayed in a great old hotel on a hill that had been Beatrix Potter’s home. —SJF]
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