I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

I have really enjoyed looking at my daffodils over the past few weeks. Any time I go in or out of the house, I make sure to look at their bright blooms stretching down the length of our home. It cheers me to see their yellow heads bobbing in the wind. As a result, I keep on singing a song around the house that I learned in sixth or seventh grade; the song is written with lyrics from a poem by William Wadsworth:

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 memorized this song and poem when I was in a choir for children who were homeschooled. I was only homeschooled for about a year, maybe a year and a half, but one of the things that I remember most about the experience was this choir. We had a dynamic and eccentric conductor whose name was Mrs. Burke. I think that her passion and interest in music helped to encourage my own desire to actively participate in choirs over the next decade of my life.

Try as I might, I can't find the version of the song online that I learned when in this choir as a teenager. I hope that I come across the music again one day, so I can include the information about the music and composer in this post. But when writing this post, I found some other nice choral versions of this poem. Here is a really nice a capella version by Robert Sund, as sung by Camerata Musica Limburg:



This is another nice version written by Myles Wright: