Back to Poetry

So, it has been a while since i have posted anything about poetry. Today i happen to be sick and I am supposed to be doing homework, but everyone needs a break right? I decided to post the poem from which the title of my blog comes from. This poem, like most of the good ones, took me a few readings before i grasped a complex meaning. I like this one because it has many different ways to read it. It can be a very fun read reading it just superficially, for the sound of the rime and the rhythm, and the nice moral. It can be read with the question in mind, "Now what does that mean?" or "Why did he describe it that that way?" or "What is the universal truth behind that?" you get the picture. You could even take a historical context and say, "what event in his life inspired the poem?" "Does that add to the significance?"
Well, i could keep going on about other ways to read this (or any) poem thoroughly, but hopefully that will suffice. So, without out further adieu here it is:

I WANDER LONELY AS A CLOUD

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 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.

PS Pay particular attention to the last stanza (that is where he teaches the moral).