I am from China, I am looking for some comments about this poem, please give me a hand. Thanks a lot!

Yingjie-

Let's take a look.


"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



Looks to me like the simple joy brought on by the beauty of nature is a value that can be recalled at will, long after the actual event. I am no scholar. I could be wrong. It's probably aout death, like everything else.



(That was sarcasm at the end there.)


Jack

Yingjie-

Let's take a look.


"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



Looks to me like the simple joy brought on by the beauty of nature is a value that can be recalled at will, long after the actual event. I am no scholar. I could be wrong. It's probably about death, like everything else.



(That was sarcasm at the end there.)


Jack

I wandered lonely as a cloud
While all the world below kowtowed.

[eir.library.utoronto.ca]

[www.cs.rice.edu]

Well Jack---

Yes I agree with you---this one's a toughie
but I think it's about death too :)
(I remembered to add the :) )

Lisa

Recycling some comments I made about this poem in earlier threads, on a simple level this poem is a straightforward one about a landscape made beautiful by daffodils and the poet's happy memory of the sight, but I read it as really more about the conflict between the pains and the joys of solitude, than about the flowers.

'Lonely as a cloud' is a strange simile. How often do you see just a single cloud floating over the landscape?! He must have had loneliness on his mind.

His problem has been that he needs solitude in order to write, and there's bliss in that; but at the same time he has suffered from loneliness.

The exhilarating, unexpected and very memorable image of the multitudinous daffodils provides him with a means of reconciling these conflicting feelings. The rhyme of ‘crowd’ with ‘cloud’ foreshadows this.

He declares that the real value (the 'wealth') to him of the experience is his realization that he can both retain his blissful solitude and at any time ease his melancholic loneliness by calling to mind that cheerful multitude of flowers, and the pleasurable image of himself as part of a 'jocund company'.

Ian

Ian,

Your response is the best explanation of that poem that I have ever heard or read. Nicely done.

Neilos

Ian, your response is really very nice. Hit the nail on the head I think. You said it all.

Wordsworth was a Romantic poet, therefore, many of his poems included the subject of nature. I studied this breifly a few years ago so can't really remember much, however, I do remember that the personification of clouds is a very important aspect of this poem. Clouds tend to come in groups rather than being solitary. Not sure what the point of this is, but I'm sure that there is one.

>Clouds tend to come in groups rather than being solitary.

Good point!

In Arizona, it is not uncommon to see a single little cloud float in all alone. When I see this sight, I always recall this poem. Wordsworth appreciated nature and solitued. He had many unfortunate events in his life such as the death of his parents and a child out of wedlock which he was prevented from seeing for many years because of the Revalution in France. This could have contributed to his sense of lonliness and need to reflect. I really don't think it deals with death only beauty in a world on change.

>In Arizona, it is not uncommon to see a single little cloud float in all alone

Yes, unlike the English Lake District, Arizona probably shares some of the weather patterns of outback Australia, written about by 'Banjo' Paterson in 1899 in:

The City Of Dreadful Thirst

The stranger came from Narromine and made his little joke--
"They say we folks in Narromine are narrow-minded folk.
But all the smartest men down here are puzzled to define
A kind of new phenomenon that came to Narromine.

"Last summer up in Narromine 'twas gettin' rather warm--
Two hundred in the water bag, and lookin' like a storm--
We all were in the private bar, the coolest place in town,
When out across the stretch of plain a cloud came rollin' down,

"We don't respect the clouds up there, they fill us with disgust,
They mostly bring a Bogan shower -- three raindrops and some dust;
But each man, simultaneous-like, to each man said, 'I think
That cloud suggests it's up to us to have another drink!'

"There's clouds of rain and clouds of dust -- we've heard of them before,
And sometimes in the daily press we read of 'clouds of war':
But -- if this ain't the Gospel truth I hope that I may burst--
That cloud that came to Narromine was just a cloud of thirst.

"It wasn't like a common cloud, 'twas more a sort of haze;
It settled down about the streets, and stopped for days and days,
And now a drop of dew could fall and not a sunbeam shine
To pierce that dismal sort of mist that hung on Narromine.

"Oh, Lord! we had a dreadful time beneath that cloud of thirst!
We all chucked up our daily work and went upon the burst.
The very blacks about the town that used to cadge for grub,
They made an organised attack and tried to loot the pub.

"We couldn't leave the private bar no matter how we tried;
Shearers and squatters, union men and blacklegs side by side
Were drinkin' there and dursn't move, for each was sure, he said,
Before he'd get a half a mile the thirst would strike him dead!

"We drank until the drink gave out, we searched from room to room,
And round the pub, like drunken ghosts, went howling through the gloom.
The shearers found some kerosene and settled down again,
But all the squatter chaps and I, we staggered to the train.

"And, once outside the cloud of thirst, we felt as right as pie,
But while we stopped about the town we had to drink or die.
But now I hear it's safe enough, I'm going back to work
Because they say the cloud of thirst has shifted on to Bourke.

"But when you see these clouds about -- like this one over here--
All white and frothy at the top, just like a pint of beer,
It's time to go and have a drink, for if that cloud should burst
You'd find the drink would all be gone, for that's a cloud of thirst!"

We stood the man from Narromine a pint of half-and-half;
He drank it off without a gasp in one tremendous quaff;
"I joined some friends last night," he said, "in what they called a spree;
But after Narromine 'twas just a holiday to me."

And now beyond the Western Range, where sunset skies are red,
And clouds of dust, and clouds of thirst, go drifting overhead,
The railway train is taking back, along the Western Line,
That narrow-minded person on his road to Narromine.