My Favorite Poem: A Poem to Delight the Nature Lover

Do you have a favorite poem-a poem that touched your soul and stayed with you throughout the years? My favorite is one with beautiful imagery, titled, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud." Written by William Wordsworth in the 1800s, the poem soothes the heart and allows the reader see what he saw, so many years ago.

Biography of the Poet, William Wordsworth
Born in Cockermouth, England, in 1770, William Wordsworth lost both his mother and father at an early age, and became orphaned along with his four siblings. It's believed he wrote his first poem while attending Hawkshead Grammar School. He studied at St. John's College in Cambridge, and before his final semester decided to take a walking tour of Europe. While in France he experienced the French Revolution and those years in France strongly influenced his interest in the common man and what he felt was the need for a common speech in poetry.

In 1802, Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinson, whom he'd known since childhood and they had five children together. During his lifetime, Wordsworth wrote a comprehensive collection of poetry, including "Lyrical Ballads," which he co-wrote with Samuel Taylor Coleridge and which had great influence on western literature. Wordsworth died at Rydal Mount in 1850. His wife, Mary, published what would become his most famous work, "The Prelude," three months later.

Thoughts on Wordsworth's poem, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"
A poem that evokes emotion as well as creating mental imagery remains evergreen through out the ages. Despite the fact that this poem was written in the early half of the 1800s, Wordsworth's work still feels fresh today. Anyone who longs for a change of season after a harsh winter can relate to the feelings that warm the soul upon spotting a cluster of daffodils that are, as Wordsworth said in the poem, "Fluttering and dancing in the breeze." The mental vision that the flowers were "Continuous as the stars that shine and twinkle on the milky way," creates a link between heaven and earth, reminding all that men and flowers alike have a place in both the terrestrial world and the celestial. Finally, in the last stanza, Wordsworth's poem brings the reader back to real life with its woes and cares, but he seals the image of the flowers upon the reader's heart by sharing this in the poem:

"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."

April is the perfect month to think about William Wordsworth, and the poem that-to me-epitomizes spring more than any other poem he wrote. Below in its entirety is his poem, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud."

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
By William Wordsworth

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.

~ William Wordsworth
(Public domain)

A poem or two by this AC author:
A Rhyming Love Poem About Faeries and Modern Love
Summer Poem: A Haiku About Fireflies

Sources:
Poets.org.
Personal experience.