Daffodils - By William Wordsworth

Daffodils

By 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 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 (7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850) was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads (1798). Wordsworth was Britain's poet laureate from 1843 until his death.

          Wordsworth through this poem wants us to be closer to the nature. He wrote this poem by passing through a lake, he came across a 'crowd' of Daffodils, he felt that the Daffodils were looking at him with joy. They were dancing with the breeze. They were beautifully enjoying with themselves and were happy; it was a beautiful sight for the poet. They were looking as if they were twinkling in the vast horizon, poet was very happy looking at them, and he believed that they were looking better as against the waves, it drove in tremendous wealth of extreme happiness.

        He used to go for an evening walk and in his walk he used to encounter some incidence and beautiful sights of nature. After viewing this sight and incidence, he spontaneously overflows his feelings as he experienced. He has used his creative imagination that he was wandered as a “lonely crowd” as aimlessly he was wandering.

        When he came back to home and was sitting ideally in pensive mood, the daffodils suddenly flashed through his memory and proved to be a blessing for him as it has filled his heart with pleasure and he seemed to enjoy every moment of it. Poet wishes to be in this sort of company as it would revive all the sense and make him happy no matters what are the circumstances.

       The poem contains four stanzas. First three stanzas are in the past tense and the last one is in present tense which supports the definition of poem given by Wordsworth himself,

“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.”

The first three stanzas are 'spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings' and the last one is 'recollected emotions in tranquillity'.