I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD
William Wordsworth (1770-1850).

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.

-oo0oo-

Wordsworth got the inspiration for his famous poem from some words in his sister’s journal. He and Dorothy had been out walking one stormy day at Ullswater, and she later wrote that the daffodils “tossed and reeled and danced, and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake.”

Tomorrow - a love poem said to be by Queen Elizabeth I

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-