A Pause for Beauty:
An artist’s journal.
That Inward Eye, Which Is The Bliss Of Solitude
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
By William Wordsworth
(first and last stanzas)
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.
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.
. . .
That inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude.
Wordsworth is estimated to have walked 186,000 miles in his lifetime.
- Journal note.
I like to walk about amidst the beautiful things that adorn the world.
- George Santayana
. . . that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love.
- William Wordsworth, from “Lines Written a few Miles Above Tintern Abbey”.
For an interesting discussion of Wordsworth’s poem, Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, visit Mark McGuinness’s A Mouthful Of Air.