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.
I was very interested in this poem from the outset because John Stuart Mill credited Wordsworth's poetry for almost instantly catalyzing his recovery from an intense depression upon reading another of Wordsworth’s poems, “My heart leaps up.” For some time after his episode of melancholy, Mill said that he understood his calling in life as being the persuasion of those of an intellectual disposition that poetry has merit. In an essay on poetry, Mill said that Wordsworth was a writer who came to poetry himself from an intellectual disposition (as opposed to Coleridge, whom Mill described as more “poetical” by nature, and so more difficult for the intellect to grasp). Back when I was reading Mill, I'd never ventured into Wordsworth's poetry, so this was an exciting opportunity to me.
And what figures the disembodiment and loneliness made possible by intellect better than a cloud? The ruminating thinker floats above, over, on top of all that rambles through the mind, disconnected from the world of perception, alienated from subjective experience—lonely. But Wordsworth—almost intimating Mill’s satori—reports that a transformation can occur “all at once” upon perceiving something beautiful. Whereas the cloud is figured as all one (i.e., alone), the daffodils are not only a “crowd” and a “host,” but they’re also situated in a broader company “beside” and “beneath” other features of the landscape. And in a relationship perhaps more poetical than intellectual, the “golden” color of the daffodils seems to me the very antithesis of loneliness. What I love most about this first stanza is how the daffodils’ golden influence is so profound that it alters the very meter of the poem in the final two lines of the first stanza, when the words themselves begin to flutter and dance in a sudden turn from iambic to dactylic feet.
The emergence of the stars in the second stanza has puzzled me. Yes, stars do seem continuous, but to me, at least, they continue in a very different way than daffodils along a bay. The stars don’t merely continue in a line—they also continue across time with such stability as to provide orientation across many dimensions of human life (from sailing to astrology). Daffodils may dance with glee, but they’re seasonal ephemera, not continuous anchors. The only way I can redeem this simile is to judge it a prefiguration of the way daffodils serve to orient the mind of the poet in the final stanza, though it feels a stretch.
I love the third stanza. Again, we see the daffodils joined by other forces, emphasizing their togetherness with all that surrounds them. The enjambment in the first two lines strikes me as particularly important, given that it’s the only instance of enjambment in the poem. For me, it serves to emphasize the other “they”—the daffodils—and the verb at the start of the second line—“out-did.” My favorite thing about this stanza is the meta-commentary on what it means to be a poet. A poet can’t help but be affected by his company. A poet lets features of the world enter him and change his mood, thus overcoming cloudy loneliness. He builds up wealth for himself by implanting images within his mind that he can later use to repicture the world.
The final stanza was so relatable to me. Losing myself to spirals of thought or catching myself staring off vacantly have been features of my most poignant episodes of melancholy, and I love imagining Wordsworth caught away in such an episode when suddenly the flash of daffodils in his inward eye returns his heart to dancing. I imagine this precise experience also characterizes the effect of Wordsworth’s poetry on Mill after his melancholy. Much can also be said about the “bliss of solitude” and the way it contrasts with the loneliness of the first stanza. What comes to me now is the way this last stanza juxtaposes two varieties of inwardness—that of vacant pensiveness opposed to inward image-making—imagination. Loneliness, pensiveness, and vacancy all cloud our sight—but the inward eye sees what is not there now, blissfully.
Imaginative practices, I take Wordsworth as saying, are what make us truly wealthy. I completely agree, and I feel wealthier for having absorbed this poem.
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