I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
(The Daffodils)
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.
"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is one of the most famous and best-loved poems written in the English language. It was composed by Romantic poet William Wordsworth around 1804, though he subsequently revised it—the final and most familiar version of the poem was published in 1815. The poem is based on one of Wordsworth's own walks in the countryside of England's Lake District. During this walk, he and his sister encountered a long strip of daffodils. In the poem, these daffodils have a long-lasting effect on the speaker, firstly in the immediate impression they make and secondly in the way that the image of them comes back to the speaker's mind later on. "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is a quintessentially Romantic poem, bringing together key ideas about imagination, humanity and the natural world.
Summary
The speaker walks alone, similar to a solitary cloud in the sky floating over hills and valleys. Suddenly, the speaker sees a long and bustling row of daffodils. They are near the lake and the trees and flutter and shift as they are blown by the breeze.
Comparing the daffodils to stars in the sky, the speaker notes how the flowers seem to go on without ending, alongside a bay. The speaker guesses there are ten thousand or so daffodils, all of their heads moving as if they were dancing.
Near the daffodils, the waves are glinting on the bay. But the daffodils seem more joyful to the speaker than the waves. A poet couldn't help being cheerful, says the speaker, in the cheerful company of the daffodils. The speaker stares at the daffodils lingeringly, without yet realizing the full extent of the positive effects of encountering them.
After the experience with the daffodils, the speaker often lies on the couch, either absent-minded or thoughtful. It is then that the daffodils come back to the speaker's imaginative memory—access to which is a gift of solitude—and fills the speaker with joy as his mind dances with the daffodils.
Themes
Nature and Humanity
Considered one of the most significant examples of Romantic poetry, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” explores the relationship between nature and humanity. In doing so, it makes two key points. Firstly, it argues that humanity is not separate from nature, but rather part of it. And secondly, it suggests that the natural world—and a strong bond with it—is essential to human happiness. Though the reader might be fooled by the suggestion of solitude in the title, this is an optimistic poem with a positive outlook on the world. This happiness is drawn from the speaker’s interaction with nature, in turn encouraging the reader to appreciate the natural majesty that is all around them.
The poem introduces the idea of loneliness in the first line, but the speaker is not really alone at all. The speaker is in the presence of “a host of golden daffodils,” whose delicate “dancing” in the wind has a long-lasting effect on the speaker’s mind. This set-up introduces a sense of togetherness between humanity (represented by the speaker) and nature (represented by the daffodils). And though this togetherness is partly rendered by the personification of the daffodils that runs throughout the poem—they are “dancing” in every stanza—the speaker pre-emptively flips this personification on its head in the very first line. Here, the speaker compares himself to a natural element: a cloud. So, the human component of the poem is like nature, and the natural component is like humanity. They are, in a word, together.
The poem suggests that this togetherness is something instinctive, and sometimes obvious only in hindsight. It’s clear that the beauty of the daffodils had an instant impact on the speaker—which is why the speaker “gazed and gazed”—but it was only later, when the experience “flashed” again in the speaker's mind, that the speaker realized its full significance. In this quiet moment, the speaker draws on the experience of the daffodils as an avenue to happiness. That is, everything that the daffodils represent—joy, playfulness, survival, beauty—"fills” the speaker with “bliss” and “pleasure.” In the speaker’s mind, the speaker is again dancing “with the daffodils.” The poem, then, is arguing that communion with nature is not just a momentary joy, but something deeper and long-lasting. The reader is left with the distinct impression that, without these types of experiences with nature, the speaker would be returned to a genuine loneliness only hinted at by the title.
Stanzas 2 and 3 also make it clear to the reader that the togetherness described above is, of course, not solely about daffodils, but rather about nature more generally. “The stars” and “the sparkling waves” are both mentioned, suggesting a series of links between the smaller, less noticeable elements of the natural world (like the daffodils), humankind (like the speaker), and the wider universe (the stars). All are presented as a part of nature; though they are different, they are all in communion with one another. However, people have to make an effort to notice this and to engage with the natural world like the speaker does. The poem, then, is an argument for active engagement with nature—a message perhaps even more important now than it was at the time, given humanity’s wide-ranging effects on the planet it inhabits.
Memory and Imagination
“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” argues for a strong connection between experience, imagination, and language. The poem itself is a memory, focused on bringing the speaker's experience of seeing daffodils back to life on the page through the concentrated power of the imagination. Like nature, the imagination was an integral part of the poetic universe of the Romantics, and in this poem, the speaker shows the way in which a strong imagination—using the “inward eye” of the mind—can bring back pleasant memories, create joy in the present, and even pass joy along to others.
The poem is told retrospectively, with all the verbs up until the final stanza in the past tense: the speaker is looking back on an experience from the past. It is, then, an effort on the speaker’s part not just to recall an experience, but to breathe new life into it through the imagination. The speaker doesn’t only want to acknowledge the experience, but somehow give it life again and, in turn, conjure that same joyful feeling.
The success of this goal depends on the speaker and the reader working together. The speaker strives to bring their experience with the daffodils into life on the page, and the reader is asked to use their imagination to make this work. The reader, then, is called on to use their own “inward eye,” just as the speaker describes in the final stanza. Primarily, this interplay between the speaker's imagination and the reader's imagination is dependent on the personification of the daffodils that runs throughout the poem. The speaker describes the daffodils as having human characteristics, which are not meant to be taken literally but instead imaginatively. For example, the “dancing” of the daffodils, referenced in every stanza, is actually just the effect of the wind. But dancing, of course, is an inherently joyful activity. The speaker perceives visual similarities between the daffodils’ movement and dance, and this imaginative leap deepens the speaker's own connection to the experience. In essence, imagining the daffodils are dancing makes the speaker feel more alive by witnessing the life in everything else.
The speaker also projects human emotion onto the daffodils: “jocund company” (jocund means cheerful). Of course, the daffodils don’t experience the world in this way—the speaker is seeing their own state of mind reflected back in the visual effect of the flowers. That imaginative leap heightens the experience, arguably making the speaker feel a stronger connection to nature. The poem in turn asks the reader to go through the same process. The reason for doing so is clear from the final stanza. Here, the speaker describes being in a “vacant” or “pensive” mood— in other words, these are times in which the speaker feels disengaged and detached from the world. Of course, the imagination is the speaker's salvation—the image of the daffodils comes rushing back, and even further, the speaker imaginatively goes back to the daffodils and “dances” with them. The poem, then, argues that such imaginative acts can have positive effects for the reader, too. Encouraging the reader toward imagination becomes the justification for the use of personification, conceptualization, and poetic language that has come before. These choices weren't just about describing the daffodils, but about engaging the reader’s imagination in experiencing them. Throughout, the speaker links imagination to happiness, particularly in its capacity to bring memories, if not back to life, into new life. The experience of the daffodils lives on in the speaker’s and then the reader’s imagination. “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” is, then, an imaginative attempt to not just recreate the speaker's experience, but to extend it into the mind of the reader. The poem argues that this process is an important part of what it means to be human and, moreover, happy.
난 구름처럼 외롭게 떠돌았네
한 조각구름과 같이 홀로 방황했었지.
높은 골짜기, 언덕을 넘나드는,
한 무리
호수가 나무 아래
미풍에 출렁이는,
황금빛 수선화를 본 순간.
반짝이는 별들과
은하에 빛나는 것과 같이
끝없는 선 위에 펼쳐 있었지.
호수 가장자리를 따라,
활기찬 율동으로 고개를 드는,
수없이 피어난 수선화.
주위의 물결도 춤추었으나,
기쁨의 반짝이는 율동으로 능가했었지.
이렇게 좋은 벗들과 함께
시인이 어찌 흔쾌치 않으리오?
바라보고 또 바라보아도 미처 몰랐었지,
그 광경이 내게 안겨준 풍요로움을.
간혹 긴 의자에 기대어 앉을 때면,
고독의 축복인 듯,
공허하고 구슬픈 생각.
심안에 섬광처럼 스치는 광경들이.
그때 내 마음 기쁨으로 가득 차 올라,
황금빛 수선화와 춤을 춘다.
수선화(Daffodils)
1815년 발표된 이 시는 워즈워스의 대표적 시로 자연을 찬미하는 낭만주의 시 중 가장 뛰어난 작품의 하나이다.
1995년 BBC 설문조사에서 영국민의 애송시로 5위로 선정되었다. 명시 선집에 거의 반드시 포함되는 시이며, 영어권 교과서에 가장 잘 수록되는 시이다.
이 시는 워즈워스가 그녀의 여동생(Dorothy)과 함께 영국 북서부의 경관이 수려한 호수 지역(Lake District)을 산책하다가 물가를 따라 줄지어 피어 있는 수선화를 보고 그 아름다움을 읊은 시이다.
3월 봄에 피는 수선화는 자연의 축복과 새로운 시작을 의미한다. 자연의 아름다움과 그로부터 받는 위안을 노래하고 있다.
다른 제목 '난 구름처럼 외롭게 떠돌았네' (I wandered lonely as a cloud)로도 널리 알려져 있다.