DAFFODILS

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

William Wordsworth (1770–1850): An English poet. He claimed that the art of poetry should be brought back to nature by making the ordinary topics of daily life

its subjects and by employing the language “really used by men.” His early poems were ridiculed and censured, but he was finally recognized as the greatest poet of his

time. He wrote “The Excursion,” “The Prelude,” “Laodamia,” “Ode on Intimations of Immortality,” and many shorter poems.

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 theMilky 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 Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such ajocund 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.

The primal duties shine aloft, like stars;

The charities that soothe and heal and bless

Are scattered at the feet of man like flowers.

(WILLIAM WORDSWORTH)