Share a POEM
with the Young People in Your Life!
with the Young People in Your Life!
In honor of National Poetry Month and this glorious season of spring, we share with you one of English Romantic poet William Wordsworth's most beloved poems. Why not take a moment and share it with the young people in your life? Take turns reciting each stanza. Have someone read the poem while driving around town. Ask young people to write their own poems inspired by nature or something else they cherish!
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
1804. 1807.
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
Editor Andrew J. George notes in The Cambridge Edition of the Poets: Wordsworth (1904) that Wordsworth wrote this poem at Town-end, Grasmere. "The Daffodils grew and still grow on the margin of Ullswater, and probably may be seen to this day as beautiful in the month of March, nodding their golden heads beside the dancing and foaming waves."
MORE Fun with Poetry!
To hear actor Jeremy Irons reading Wordsworth's poem on YouTube, click here.
To discover more ways you can celebrate National Poetry Month, visit Poets.org.
To find more poems by Wordsworth and other poets, visit your local library or bookstore!
To see a list of recommended poetry books for kids ages 0-9, visit ReadingRockets.org.
To see a list of recommended poetry books for older kids, visit AdLit.org.
