Question

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.

Explain the poem.

Answer 1

Their cottage is known as Dove Cottage today, but in fact it had no name in their time and their address was simply "Town End, Grasmere", Town End being the name of the hamlet in Grasmere they lived in c.f. Moorman (1957) pp. 459–60.^ In the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads Wordsworth famously defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility." Mary Moorman (1957 pp. 148–9) remarks that in this manner spring poems such as "Tintern Abbey" and "I wandered lonely as a Cloud", as well as all the best of The Prelude.