Wordsworth's Daffodils

My close friend H came back from her vacation from the March Break with two lovely souvenirs for me and our friend M. They are adorable miniature turtle carvings. Being English geeks to a ridiculous degree and having just come from an English class on poetry through the ages, M and I decided that we would name our turtles after two great poets: Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849) and William Wordsworth (1770-1850). Thus, Edgar and Wordsworth are now quite happily sitting in our rooms.

In honour of our new friends, I thought I'd post a poem by Wordsworth. Often considered Wordsworth's most famous poem, "I wandered lonely as a cloud" (also known as "Daffodils" or "The Daffodils") was first written in 1804.

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.

Interestingly enough, Wordsworth's sister, wrote about walking with her brother among the daffodils just a few years prior to Wordsworth's poem. Here are her words below.

When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow Park, we saw a few daffodils close to the water side. We fancied that the lake had floated the seed ashore and that the little colony had so sprung up. But as we went along there were more and more and at last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road.

I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about and about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness and the rest tossed and reeled and danced and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake, they looked so gay ever dancing ever changing.

This wind blew directly over the lake to them. There was here and there a little knot and a few stragglers a few yards higher up but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity and unity and life of that one busy highway. We rested again and again. The Bays were stormy, and we heard the waves at different distances and in the middle of the water like the sea.

— Dorothy Wordsworth, The Grasmere Journal , Thursday, 15 April 1802