Part 2: Personal Collection of Poems: I wandered lonely as a cloud

3) “I wandered lonely as a cloud” –William Wordsworth

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 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.


The memory Wordsworth describes here was a day when he went walking with his sister Dorothy. The reason I like this poem is because of how peaceful it is and I love the descriptions he writes about the daffodils. He does a really good job in personifying them and showing how happy these flowers appear. I also like how he remembers that when he first saw these daffodils, he “but little thought / What wealth the show to me had brought.” I think everyone can relate to this feeling since when you see something that makes you happy, you don’t really think about how it makes you happy or how the memory will stay with you since you’re caught up in the moment.

I think that this poem demonstrates how happy memories have so much power, and that just by remembering, it can make the day a lot better: “In vacant or in pensive mood, / They flash upon that inward eye / …And then my heart with pleasure fills…” This shows how important memories are, and also how important it is to remember.



Wordsworth, William. “I wandered lonely as a cloud.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Period. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2006. 305.