William Wordsworth. 1770–1850


  


Daffodils


  






I WANDER’D 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 stretch’d 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.