Lyric Poem · Nature
I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud
by William Wordsworth · 1807
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 leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but 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 Cloud” by William Wordsworth — quilloak.com/poems/i-wandered-lonely-as-a-cloud
Quick facts
- Poem
- I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud
- Poet
- William Wordsworth
- Published
- 1807
- Length
- 24 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem, Rhyming Poems
- Themes
- Nature, Happiness
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 24 lines · 4 sestets
- Line length
- Mostly 8-syllable lines (tetrameter length).
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- William Wordsworth1770–1850
- Source record
- PoetryDBI Wandered Lonely As A Cloud by william-wordsworth, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- 1807
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 62bdb8b86fb34f95…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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