I always thought that the name of the famous poem by Wordsworth was “Daffodils”, but apparently it’s actually “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”. I prefer “Daffodils”.

Here’s the poem:

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.

I didn’t have quite the experience that Wordsworth had:

• I was in a suburban New York town, so I didn’t see “…a crowd, a host of golden daffodils”, just the few that you see in the pictures.
• I wasn’t “beside the lake, beneath the trees” although I was quite close to the Hudson River.
• The daffodils were not “fluttering and dancing in the breeze”.
• There certainly weren’t “ten thousand” of them.

Still, I very much agree with the sentiments expressed in the final verse.

As I writ this (April 25, 2025) the daffodils are starting to fade.

Taken with a Sony RX10 IV

Taken with a Sony RX10 IV