Thoughts for Thursday

First Day of Spring

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

  Outdid 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.

Born April 7, 1770
Died April 23, 1850

From One Hundred and One Famous Poems
 with a Prose Supplement
An Anthology Compiled by Roy J. Cook
Revised Edition, published in 1958
by The Reilly & Lee Co. Publishers, Chicago