Heres a virtual movie of the great William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850) reading his most famous poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" which is better known these days as "The Daffodils".
"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" (also commonly known as "Daffodils"[1] or "The Daffodils") is a 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. Written in 1804, it was first published in 1807 in Poems in Two Volumes, and a revised version was released in 1815, which is more commonly known.[2] It consists of four six-line stanzas, in iambic tetrameter and an ABABCC rhyme scheme.
It is usually considered Wordsworth's most famous work.[3] In the "Nation's Favourite Poems", a poll carried out by the BBC's Bookworm,[4] "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" came fifth.[5] Well known, and often anthologised, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" is commonly seen as a classic of English romanticism within poetry, although the original version was poorly reviewed by Wordsworth's contemporaries.
The inspiration for the poem came from a walk he took with his sister Dorothy around Glencoyne Bay, Ullswater, in the Lake District.[6][7] Wordsworth would draw on this to compose "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" in 1804. It was inspired by Dorothy's writing in reference to this walk:[7]
Poems in Two Volumes (1807), in which "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" originally appeared, has been considered to be the peak of Wordsworth's power, and of his popularity.[8] However, it was poorly reviewed by Wordsworth's contemporaries, including Lord Byron,[20] whom Wordsworth would come to despise. Byron said of the volume, in one of its first reviews, "Mr. W[ordsworth] ceases to please, ... clothing [his ideas] in language not simple, but puerile".[21] Wordsworth himself wrote ahead to soften the thoughts of The Critical Review, hoping his friend Wrangham would push a softer approach. He succeeded in preventing a known enemy from writing the review, but it didn't help; as Wordsworth himself said, it was a case of "Out of the frying pan, into the fire". Of any positives within Poems in two volumes, perceived masculinity in "The Happy Warrior" was one. "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" couldn't have been further from it. Wordsworth took the reviews stoically.
Even Wordsworth's close friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge said that the poem contained "mental bombast". Two years later, however, and many were more positive about the collection. Samuel Rogers said that he had "dwelt particularly on the beautiful idea of the 'Dancing Daffodils'", and this was echoed by Henry Crabb Robinson. Critics were rebutted by public opinion, and the work gained in popularity and recognition, as did Wordsworth.[19]
The poem came in for criticism in the Edinburgh Review, but the publication was well-known for its criticism of the Lake poets. As Sir Walter Scott put it, at the time of the poem's publication, "Wordsworth is harshly treated in the Edinburgh Review, but Jeffrey [the editor] gives ... as much praise as he usually does".[22] Upon the author's death in 1850, the Westminster Review called the poem "very exquisite
Kind Regards
Jim Clark
All rights are reserved on this video recording copyright Jim ,Clark 2011
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" User Rating:
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(391 votes) - vote - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Print friendly version E-mail this poem to e friend Send this poem as eCard Add this poem to MyPoemList 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.
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I Wandered Lonely as a Cloudby JGonzoProductions6,225 views
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