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William WordsworthI Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1807A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Form and Meter
The 24-line poem is made up of four six-line stanzas, each consisting of a quatrain and concluding rhyming couplet. The rhyme scheme throughout is ABABCC.
The poem is written in iambic tetrameter (it contains four “iambs” or metrical feet: u/ u/ u/ u). This is a common meter in English poetry and conveys a regular, relaxed rhythm—almost as if one is walking. This is particularly appropriate in this poem as the speaker tells us he “wandered” (Line 1) through the landscape.
His intimate, conversational tone implies that he is sharing a confidence with the reader; in fact, he wants the reader to feel what he feels, just as his heart dances along with the daffodils.
This sympathetic pairing can be found in the many instances of alliteration used by the poet: “lonely as a cloud” (the repetition of ‘l’ in Line 1), “high o’er vales and hills” (the repetition of ‘h’ and ‘l’ in Line 2), “[B]eside the lake, beneath the trees” (the repetition of ‘b’ in Line 5, which finds an echo in the words “breeze” in Line 6), “dances with the daffodils” (the repetition of ‘d’ in Line 24).
Iambic tetrameter is also commonly used in ballads, of which Wordsworth wrote a number, such as “The Solitary Reaper.” However, this poem does not tell a story—rather, it describes a subjective experience that transforms the speaker’s life.
Personifying Nature
Everything in nature is imbued with human characteristics. The speaker personifies the daffodils, which are “[f]luttering and dancing in the breeze” (Line 6) and “[t]ossing their heads in sprightly dance” (Line 12).
Similarly, “[t]he waves beside them danced” (Line 13), and the speaker’s heart “dances with the daffodils” (Line 24). The repetition implies that the daffodils’ merriment is utterly infectious, causing everything in nature to dance joyfully.
In such “jocund company” (Line 16)—“jocund” being an archaic term for light-hearted”—the speaker’s mood becomes buoyant. He implies that the flowers are like good friends who have cheered him up and dispelled his loneliness.
The extended metaphor, by which natural phenomena are understood in terms of human behavior, makes it easy for the poet to relate to nature as something familiar. This familiarity is what makes it so appealing to him.
Celestial Metaphors
Throughout this poem, the speaker compares that which is on earth to that which is in the heavens. He initially compares himself to a cloud, which floats above the earth, and subsequently refers to the daffodils he sees as “stars that shine / And twinkle on the milky way” (Lines 7-8).
Comparison helps him to gain greater understanding of what he sees. We know that flowers are beautiful, but in this instance, they are so numerous, bright, and astonishing that they merit comparison with celestial beings.
The speaker’s use of hyperbole appears warranted—he is overcome by the number of daffodils he sees and can only describe the scene in terms of mathematics: “[T]en thousand” (Line 11) appear in “never-ending line” (Line 9), as close as the speaker can come to the infinite. The use of enjambment at the end of Line 9 extends the idea of something never-ending.
These metaphors indicate that the speaker cannot quite believe he is seeing something of such otherworldly loveliness on earth. He has to compare earthly objects with heavenly ones to grasp their magnitude.
The final metaphor in the poem—that of the “inward eye” (Line 21)—refers to that part of the mind the poet uses to daydream, remember, and imagine. It can also be read as a reference to the Romantic “I,” the subjective self that records feelings and experiences.
Related Titles
By William Wordsworth
