I wandered lonely as a Cloud
William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
written 1804; published 1807; this text 1815

Cold Library · Open Stacks · S-004009 · https://coldlibrary.com/s/004009
Rights: Published in 1807 and revised in 1815; the author died in 1850. Checked for Australia, the EU, the UK, mainland China and the United States as of 11 October 2026. Guidance, not legal advice.
Source: Wikisource, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Poems_(Wordsworth,_1815)/Volume_1/I_wandered_lonely (retrieved 2026-10-11)
Generated 2026-10-14 from https://coldlibrary.com/en/open-stacks/wordsworth-i-wandered-lonely-as-a-cloud

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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 shew 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.