The message of "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," also known as "Daffodils," is simple. And part of that message is that the simple things in life have the power to bring happiness during tough times. Keeping with the message of the poem, Wordsworth creates a structure that is simple, too.
The rhyme scheme is straightforward:
I wandered lonely as a Cloud A
That floats on high o'er vales and Hills, B
When all at once I saw a crowd, A
A host, of golden Daffodils; B
Beside the Lake, beneath the trees, C
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. C
Sometimes in poetry, you have to watch out for slant (or not-quite-but-almost) rhymes. No need to worry about that here; the rhymes are straightforward, keeping it all simple.
The root word tetra means 4. This poem is written in tetrameter, meaning that there are 4 pairs of syllables in each line:
Wordsworth's poem is composed of four stanzas. Each stanza has six lines with the first line rhyming with the third line and the second line rhyming with fourth line. Each stanza ends in a rhyming couplet.
( a,b,a,b,c,c). The meter in the poem is iambic tetrameter. For example, in the third stanza, Wordsworth writes:
The WAVES.|.be SIDE.|.them DANCED;.|.but THEY
Out-DID.|.the SPARK.|.ling WAVES.|.in GLEE:—
A PO.|.et COULD.|.not BUT.|.be GAY
In SUCH.|.a JOC.|.und COM.|.pa NY:
I GAZED—.|.and GAZED—.|.but LIT.|.tle THOUGHT
.
What WEALTH.|.the SHOW.|.to ME.|.had BROUGHT:
In the first stanza, line 6 initially appears to be written in another meter but Wordsworth probably mean the word "fluttering" to be read
as two syllable ( i.e. flut RING ) so it fits into iambic tetrameter .
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