Can you provide a paraphrase of William Wordsworth's poem "Daffodils"?

Wordsworth's famous poem is not so much about the joys of nature as of the natural world as a source of poetic inspiration. Like many Romantic poets, Wordsworth was inspired by nature in writing his poems. He didn't believe that nature was simply a giant collection of pretty objects; rather, it was a living force in its own right.

One can see the Romantic attitude towards nature on display in the poem. The speaker is wandering “lonely as a cloud,” meaning that he's in desperate need of poetic inspiration. However, the speaker's wanderings come to an end when he sees “a crowd / A host, of golden daffodils.” Although the daffodils are indeed beautiful as they flutter and dance in the breeze, what makes them special is that they give the speaker the inspiration he needs. For good measure, he feels cheerful in their company:

A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company.

The speaker's encounter with the daffodils has changed his life. From now on, whenever he's lying on his couch, absentminded or in a state of deep thought, he's roused from his reverie by the thought of the daffodils, which fills him with joy as well as stimulating his creativity. Daffodils can be seen, then, as a metaphor for nature and the profound effect it has upon the poetic imagination.

Wordsworth's poem is rather straightforward, written in language that most everyone should understand. So rather than try to paraphrase the poem word for word, I'll explain briefly what each stanza is saying.

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.

Simply, the author is walking near a lake when he comes upon a "host," or large bed, of daffodils. "Vale" is another word for "valley."

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.

There are as many daffodils as there are stars in the sky--so many they can't be counted. He says in one glance he can see "ten thousand," which is a large number used to express how large the bed of flowers is. They seem to be dancing in the breeze.

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:

The waves of the lake lap at the shore, but the sound the daffodils make as they dance in the wind outdos the sound of the water. The poet can't help being happy when he is in such joyful (jocund) company. He looks at them for a long time, but he doesn't yet appreciate what experiencing these flowers has done for him.

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.

Now, in the final stanza, the poet knows how much the flowers have affected him. Often, when he is lying on his couch or when he is in a thoughtful (pensive) mood, an image of the daffodils will come to him, and then his heart fills with pleasure and "dances with the daffodils."

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Analyze William Wordsworth's poem "Daffodils".

This poem, written by William Wordsworth in 1807, is formally known as "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud." It is a four-stanza poem with six lines in each stanza; this is called a sestet. The rhyme scheme is ababcc, with end rhymes. The meter of the poem is iambic tetrameter, meaning that each lines has four iambs. An iamb consists of one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one.

In the poem's first stanza, the speaker is out for a rambling walk, when he happens upon a vast field of daffodils beside a lake and under a tree. The wind is moving them around in a way he describes as "fluttering and dancing."

In the second stanza, the speaker emphasizes the vastness of the field of flowers by comparing them to the span of the Milky Way; he estimates their number to be ten thousand, and he again marvels at how they dance in the breeze along the lakeshore.

In the third stanza, the speaker continues to gaze upon the flowers, and he reckons that the waves on the lake are not nearly as captivating as the movement of the flowers. He can't help but be elated by their beauty and sprightliness. He begins to relate that the sight of them has been quite special.

In the final stanza, the speaker reflects on how the sight of the dancing daffodils has stayed with him. He often finds that the image of them comes to mind when he is alone with his thoughts, and when it does, it brings him joy.

A general theme of this image-laden poem, then, is that nature offers beauty and joy to those who take the time to appreciate it.