The daffodils

Two centuries have quietly passed since the English poet laureate William Wordsworth wrote, in or about 1804, the first version of his celebrated poem "The Daffodils". Half a century ago, I, as a secondary school student, read it in the poetry book prescribed, as a compulsory reading, by the University of the Punjab, in Pakistan. The poem not only fascinated me as it had millions like me, but has also continued to almost haunt me, ever since. When I am "in vacant or in pensive mood", its words and images "flash upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude".
When I visited the lake district in England, where Wordsworth was born, lived, lies buried and wrote his finest poetry, including this poem, I spent days, and walked all alone for miles, to look for the spot where Wordsworth might have seen these dancing, golden daffodils. In the end, I was led to believe that I almost saw it.
William Wordsworth and his younger sister Dorothy Wordsworth were in their early thirties when, on April 15, 1802, they happened to see these wild, yellow, pseudo-narcissus flowers which used to grow then in the month of April, and now make their appearance in February. William rendered his thoughts and emotions into verse, about two years later, but Dorothy recorded her impressions almost immediately, in flowing, partly un-punctuated prose, in her journal.
On April 17, 1802 Dorothy made the following entry in her journal:--
"Thursday 15th. It was a threatening misty morning - but mild. We set off after dinner from Eusemere..... The wind was furious... When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow park, we saw a few daffodils close to the waterside, we fancied that the lake had floated the seeds ashore and that the little colony had so sprung up - But as we went along there were more and yet more and at last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road. I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about and about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness and the rest tossed and reeled and danced & seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the Lake, they looked so gay ever glancing ever changing. This wind blew directly over the Lake to them. There was here and there a little knot and a few stragglers a few yards higher up but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity and unity and life of that one busy highway."
A day earlier, on 14 April, 1802, the brother and sister enjoyed a seven-and-a-half mile long walk which ended at an inn where they had ham, veal cutlets and potatoes. The walk on 15 April, 1802 also ended at another inn where they had supper with a glass of warm rum, in the warmth of a bright fire.
It was in, or about, 1804 that William Wordsworth composed the first version of the poem, which then comprised three stanzas only. It was published in 1807, on pages 49 and 50 of the second volume of his collection titled "Poems in Two volumes". The poem itself was without a title. The first version read:-
-"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 dancing Daffodils;
Along the Lake, beneath the trees,
Ten thousand dancing in the breeze.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:- -A Poet could not but be gay
In such a laughing company:
I gaz'd - and gaz'd - but little thought
What wealth the shew 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.
This poem is today ranked among the top ten great poems ever written in English. However, two centuries ago, after its publication, it evoked critical and even satirical comments. Two such comments whose authors were poets are given below.
In August, 1807, a poetess Anna Seaward wrote to her friend Sir Walter Scott:-
"Surely Wordsworth must be as mad as was ever the poet Lee. Those volumes of his, which you were so good to give me, have excited, by turns, my tenderness and warm admiration, my contemptuous astonishment and disgust. The two latter rose to their utmost height while I read about his dancing daffodils, ten thousand, as he says, in high dance in the breeze beside the river, whose waves dance with them and the poet's heart, we are told, danced too. Then he proceeds to say that, in the hours of pensive or of pained contemplation, these same capering flowers flash on his memory, and his heart, losing its cares, dances with them again. Surely if his worst foe had chosen to caricature this egotistic manufacturer of metaphysic importance upon trivial themes, he could not have done it more effectually!"
In January, 1815, poet James Montgomery wrote in the Eclectic Review:-
"Few people would be sentimentally struck by the unexpected appearance "of a host of dancing daffodils" on the margin of a lake, "whose sparkling waves danced beside them"; and still fewer would carry away the image and treasure it up in memory for the occasional exhilaration of their private thoughts; yet Mr. Wordsworth, after fancifully describing such a merry dance of flowers and sunbeams on the water says..... "In vacant or in pensive mood, / They flash upon that inward eye/ Which is the bliss of solitude."
Between 1807 and 1815, Wordsworth revised the poem and added a stanza to it. It was printed, in 1815, at pages 328 and 329 of his collected works, once again without a title, and was phrased in the following immortal words:-
-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 shew 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.
The last stanza in both the 1807 and 1815 versions is exactly the same. In the words of Wordsworth, the two best lines in the poem are the last but two lines of the last stanza, i.e., the middle lines. In November, 1807, he wrote:-
"There were two lines in that little poem which, if thoroughly felt, would annihilate nine tenths of the Reviews of the Kingdom; the lines I alluded to were those "They flash upon that inward eye, Which is the bliss of solitude."
According to Wordsworth, these two lines were not his composition; this was the contribution of his wife Mary. The title of "The Daffodils" was first given to this poem in 1843 - 36 years after it was first published, and 7 years before Wordsworth died, in 1850, at the ripe, old age of eighty years. The title "The Daffodils" was not given by Wordsworth.