By: William

Wordsworth
• Born in England in
1770
• subjects of nature and
memory
William Wordsworth was born on April 7th, 1770 in
Cockermouth, Cumberland in the Lake District. The
beautiful landscape inspired him to write poems
about nature. In 1804, he wrote the poem " I
Wandered Lonely as a Cloud", a poem also known as
"The Daffodils".

His sister Dorothy, played an important part in his

life and she also influenced him with her love of
nature. The inspiration to write this poem came
while he was out walking with Dorothy near Lake
Ullswater in Grasmere and they came upon some
daffodils growing near the river. When he saw so
many daffodils, he loved the scene very much and
enjoyed the time he spent with his sister.
 Definitions
1. O’er: mean over. "O'er" is pronounced as one syllable,
not two as in "over".
2. Daffodils: a bulbous plant that typically bears bright
yellow flowers with a long trumpet-shaped center
3. Vales: a valley
4. Jocund: cheerful and lighthearted
5. Oft: archaic, poetic/literary, or jocular form of often.
6. Pensive: reflecting deep or serious thought.
7. Solitude: the state or situation of being alone.
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
Outdid 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.
● This is an English Romantic poem.
● Back then, everyones idea was very religious and their
notion was that God is through nature. They believed
that when we are born, we are from God, babies still
have clouds, which is the consciousness of God.
● As we get older, we move away from God like the chart
of life. When death comes along, you are back to God’s
consciousness. They also said that in the city we are
lost and nature is where you find yourself where you
are free. Nature in the city is basically trapped.
Structure
● consist of four stanzas each with a sestet

● total of 24 lines
● Meter of the poem is in Iambic Tetrameter : each line
has four iambs (unaccented syllable /accented
syllable)
● This has an
● the rhyme scheme :
1st stanza-ABABCC
2nd stanza-DEDEFF
3rd stanza-EGEGHH
4th stanza-IJIJBB
● diction can be assumed as indifferent or
melancholy in the first two lines
“ I wondered lonely as a cloud” also known as
“The Daffodils’” the speaker is comparing himself
to a cloud that floats carelessly and yet feels distant
or seperated from the world beneath him
● By the third line
“when all at once I saw a crowd” the poem
shifts into a blithe/joyful attitude, an interest
towards the gorgeous scene which he describes and
keeps throughout the poem
-Fluttering/dancing/shine/twinkle/sprightly
dance/glee/gay/jocund/wealth/bliss/pleasure fills
Literary Devices
● Simile- a comparison using the word like or as

● Metaphor-an unusual substitution

● Personification-giving human qualities to something

non-human

● Imagery: the use of words to represent things, actions, or

ideas by sensory description.
● In the first stanza, the poem is full of imagery and Wordsworth describes
the scene when we wanders "as lonely as a cloud". He compares himself
to a single cloud that is floating over the valleys and the hills. The speaker
feels distant and seperated from the world below. The poet says that he is
like a cloud. That's a simile.
● Then he sees a "crowd" of golden daffodils which are under the trees and
beside a lake and are "fluttering and dancing in the breeze". He uses calm
and soft words.
● He uses personification when he says that the daffodils are fluttering and
dancing. He loves the beauty around him and it makes him feel complete
and happy. He makes the daffodils come alive just for him and have a
human like quality in the way they are behaving.
● When he sees a "crowd" of golden daffodils that are under the trees and
beside a lake, he makes it seems like the daffodils are people. Every time
he is lonely, he will remember when he saw the beautiful daffodils that
make him feel less lonely and his heart will be happily dancing, too.
● In lines 3-4, the connotations come when he says a "crowd" thats is
associated with groups of people, while "host" is associated with angels,
because people often refer to a "host of angels."
● In the second stanza, the speaker makes a connection with the daffodils
and the stars. This stanza is still full of imagery. He compares the daffodils
to the shining stars that sparkle in the Milky Way as the number of
daffodils are near the river seem to be thousands in number.

● He also says that the flowers and the stars were “never-ending” and
“continuous” meaning that there were so many that he assumed their
were more than thousands. This is an hyperbole or an exaggeration. It
reminds him of the Milky Way, because their were so many bright flowers
grouped together that they seemed to be never ending. He describes
them dancing while they toss their heads which is another personification.
The second stanza begins with a simile comparing the shape and number
of the daffodils to the numbers of stars that we call the Milky Way galaxy.
● In the third stanza, he again compares the waves of the lake to the waves
of daffodils. He decides that even though the lake is "sparkling," the
daffodils win because they have more "glee." He felt so happy and
expressed his feeling as gay in such a jocund company. He looked at the
scene for a long time, but while he was there, he couldn’t understand
what he had gained from his experience. The repetition of "gaze" tells us
that he kept looking at the flowers for a long time.

● Although, he can see the waves of the river move like its dancing, it
doesn’t compare to the way the daffodils are making him feel. The final
line of the stanza is his thanks to nature for providing him with "wealth"
by putting up a show like this. He really enjoyed nature and felt like he
belonged there.

● We know that the speaker is a poet because he tells us so in line 15. He

speaks in the third person, but we know he’s talking about himself.
• In the last stanza, he describes how that scene affected him because
whenever he is at home and on his own "in the bliss of solitude," he
remembers the flowers that fills him with pleasure and his heart "dances
with the daffodils". Again the use of words like "bliss"show his happiness
each time the memory of those flowers and the way they danced that day
comes back to him.

• First, he sets the scene when he sits on his couch, feeling worthless in life,
with no great thoughts. Sometimes his mind is empty and "vacant," like a
bored teenager sitting on the sofa after school. At other times he feels
"pensive," which means he thinks kind of sad thoughts. You can’t be both
"vacant" and "pensive" because one means "not thinking," and the other
means "thinking while feeling blue."

• the phrase inward eye means the most inner personal thoughts of one.
Lines 21-24, Wordsworth imagines the daffodils in his spiritual vision,so he
uses the metaphor of an "inward eye."
This is a beautiful but simple poem about the BEAUTY OF
NATURE and how inspiring it can be. This poem was written so
that you can visualize and imagine how it would look in your
perspective. In most of this poem, he gave the flowers a human
quality, like dancing. There are rhyming words at the end of
every alternate line of the poem giving it both continuity and a
sense of rhythm.