“Daffodils”

by William Wordsworth

 

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.