I wandered lonely as a cloud (The Daffodils / Second Version)

I wandered lonely as a cloud

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 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.

William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850)
Published in Collected Poems, 1815

„I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" (also known as „The Daffodils") is an 1804 poem by William Wordsworth. It was inspired by an April 15, 1802 event in which Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy came across a „long belt" of daffodils. It was first published in 1807, and a revised version was released in 1815. In anthologies the poem is sometimes titled „I wandered lonely as a cloud."