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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Verse  »  530. Daffodils

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

William Wordsworth. 1770–1850

530. 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,         5
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:  10
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,  15
  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,  20
They flash upon that inward eye 
  Which is the bliss of solitude; 
And then my heart with pleasure fills, 
And dances with the daffodils.