The Luminous Daffodils Of William Wordsworth

Vivid Childhood Experiences
The Irish poet Seamus Heaney wrote in his essay on William Wordsworth that Wordsworth as a child “imagined he heard the moorlands breathing down his neck” and “he rowed in panic when he thought a cliff was pursuing him across moonlit water.”

Wordsworth And His Sister Go Out For A Walk
Perhaps this intensity of imagination similarly stoked his creative juices when he and his sister came across a long stretch of beautiful daffodils in bloom when they went out for a walk one day in April 1802.

Creating ‘I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud’
Why is this probably so? Because apparently it was that memory which led to his writing in 1804 his poem entitled I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud.

One Lone Daffodil
Here is one ‘relative’ of those daffodils photographed for a Quillcards Flower Ecard 208 years later this spring by David here in the north of England:

I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud
A masterpiece on the glory of daffodils, Wordsworth’s poem was first published in 1807 three years after he wrote it:

I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud
by William Wordsworth

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.

‘The Spontaneous Overflow Of Emotions’
Much has been written about Wordsworth and his art, of course.

In this classic poem, Wordsworth set his hat on the common daffodil that grows in abundance in England to convey his idea that poetry is “the spontaneous overflow of emotions” and that the subjective experience and the emotions that we feel in such circumstances are crucially important.

Hail To Those Hosts of Golden Daffodils
His poem is set firmly in the English consciousness, which is why every spring when the daffodils make their splash I and many other people think of his “host of golden daffodils” as we admire their luminous beauty set in peaceful country settings.

References:
Seamus Heaney writing on Wordsworth in The Guardian
The William Wordsworth Group at Enotes

We’re changing the look of ecard communications.
Take A Look At Our Ecards.

You might also like to read:
• William Blake: Sedition In Chichester
• Have You Seen The Snowdrops

Tagged as: daffodils, English literature, narcissus, poetry, Seamus Heaney, William Wordsworth, Wordsworth