WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Portrait
Britain's Poet Laureate from 1842 -1850
Attributions
Oil on canvas portrait by Benjamin Robert Haydon, 1842
Bequeathed by John Fisher Wordsworth, 1920
Source
http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/largerimage.php?search=ap&npgno=1857
National Portrait Gallery
Dates and Places of Birth and Death
BORN: April 7, 1770 Wordsworth House, Cockermouth
DAFFODILS.
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
Outdid 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.
Source
http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/largerimage.php?search=ap&npgno=1857
National Portrait Gallery
Dates and Places of Birth and Death
BORN: April 7, 1770 Wordsworth House, Cockermouth
DIED: April 23, 1850 Cumberland, United Kingdom
____________________
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
Outdid 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.
