Wordsworth, William - I wandered lonely as a cloud (2)

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.

Analysis of Poetry

In the poem I wandered lonely as a cloud written by William Wordsworth in 1804, is the poet who speaks and he tell about the daffodils that he see during a wander. The poem is split into four stanzas and each stanza is made up of six lines, which have an irregular length. Lines are aligned and begin with capital letter.

In I wandered lonely as a cloud there are six run-on lines: lines 1-2 ( “as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills”), lines 7-8 ( “as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way”), lines 13-14 (“but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee”), lines 17-18 (“but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought”), lines 19-20 (“on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood”) and lines 21-22 (“inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude”). There is a regular rhyme scheme which is ABABCC-DEDEFF-GHGHII-JKJKLL. In the first stanza there are two similes (line 1, “I wandered lonely as a cloud” and line 7, “Continuous as the stars that shine”) and two consonances (line 2, “That floats on high o'er vales and hills” and line 6, “Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.”) and Daffodils are often personificated like “crowd” (line 3), “host” (line 4), “fluttering and dancing” (line 6), “tossing their heads” (line12); there is also a personification of the waves “dance” (line 13).

To sum up, I think this poem is really amazing, it let me imagine these daffodils like a golden rug which shine and twinkle.