Before TV? Poem 295 Page 343

"There once was a poet named Will
Who tramped his way over a hill
And was speechless for hours
Over some stupid flowers
This was years before TV, but still." -Some Idiot on the Internet. =)


Published first in 1807, and revised in 1815 "The Daffodils" or "I wandered Lonely as a Cloud" was written about an experience Wordsworth had while out with his sister. Wordsworth recalls this experience of pleasure when he is "in vacant or in pensive mood..." The speaker is able to convey the reality of this moment in his life by stating that he himself is the poet, "A poet could not but be gay" and this authenticates the tranquility of the experience for both the reader and the speaker. The lyrical nature of this poem is added to by the quatrain-couplet rhyme scheme ( a b a b c c) that lends itself to a singsong/childlike nature. In this childlike innocence the speaker feels "the bliss of solitude" and while at the time of the viewing the speaker had "but little thought/ what wealth the show to me had brought:" he is able to later bring forth in his mind the free-ness that he had experienced.
By beginning the poem with a simile " I wandered lonely as a cloud" the author denotes the freedom of both the moment and the poem; the speaker is both physically free (in an open space and alone) as well as mentally and emotionally free. By describing himself as a cloud he is telling the reader that this journey is celestial or transcendental in that he is beyond what he troubling him in life and allowing himself to enjoy the true nature of God, and through God, nature.By singling himself out and insinuating a distance between himself and the dancing daffodils the speaker shows both his present loneliness and his loneliness at the time. The personification of the "host, of golden daffodils;" adds to the solitary nature of the speaker's transcendental and innocent experience.
This poem I happened to enjoy immensely. The imagery of the daffodils is reminiscent of my favorite time of year, and the experience of the the speaker makes me want to go out and find my own band of daffodils to gaze upon. Wordsworth's unusual take on the daffoils "dance" makes this poem particularly outstanding in that the common description of "waves" (such as that seen in "America The Beautiful") is not applied to the daffodils but instead to the outdoing of the waves of the bay nearby, "The waves beside them danced; but they / Outdid the sparkling waves in glee."