William Wordsworth Daffodils

William Wordsworth’s poem Daffodils is one of the most famous poems in the English language. Many generations of schoolchildren have learned the poem.

It begins: “I was wandering alone like a cloud, which floats high over valley and hill, when suddenly I saw a multitude, a multitude of golden daffodils.” Many only know the first line, but the entire poem is beautiful and evocative.

“Daffodils” was composed in 1804, two years after Wordsworth saw the flowers while walking through Ullswater, in the English Lake District, on a stormy day with Dorothy, his sister. His inspiration for the poem came from an account Dorothy wrote in her Grasmere Journals.

Dorothy and William Wordsworth were living at Grasmere at Dove Cottage at the time. Dove Cottage, managed with love and care by the Wordsworth Trust, is a magnet for lovers of Wordsworth. You can also visit the Wordsworth Museum, which houses special exhibits and is a mine of information about Wordsworth’s life and times.

In her diary entry for April 15, 1802, Dorothy describes how the daffodils ‘tossed and tottered and danced, and seemed as if they really laughed in the wind that blew over them over the lake’. Her brother, William, was fascinated by this description. . Wordsworth published his poem, “I Wandered Lonely Like a Cloud”, in 1807. He later modified it, and the second version of it, of the poems, Daffodils, by William Wordsworth published in 1815, is the best known in the present.

The daffodils that William and Dorothy saw were the small, wild ones that grow in many places in the Lake District. There are many places where you can still see these beautiful little flowers, in fact I am lucky to have a large number of them in my garden. I live in a house called White Moss House, which William Wordsworth bought for his son. It is only 1 mile from Dove Cottage, and the poet knew White Moss well, stopping to rest on the porch on his daily walks.

Visitors to the Lake District in spring love to see the daffodils, and there are oodles of them in every field and hedgerow. In his later years Wordsworth lived in a fine house, Rydal Mount, just 2 miles from Grasmere. The field next to the house is called “Campo de Dora”, and a mass of these tiny flowers can be seen there. Dora was the beloved daughter of the poet, and he had planned to build a house for her in the small field. It was never built, and as the land is owned by the National Trust, visitors are free to wander around this beautiful site.

You really need to see photographs to appreciate Wordsworth’s daffodils, and if you follow the link below you’ll be able to see some of my collection.

My favorite line of the poem, Daffodils, is the last line-

“Because often, when I lie down on my bed, in an empty or pensive state of mind, lightning flashes in that inner eye, which is the happiness of solitude…”

I love Wordsworth’s phrase “the bliss of solitude.” I too love being alone and reflecting, it’s something we should all find space for in this hectic modern world.