#Poet:WIlliam Wordsworth

[i-desiredeath]

I : Untitled

“In parting from you now, this much let me avow; you are not wrong, who deem that my days have been a dream. Yet if hope has flown away in a night, or in a day; in a vision, or in none; is it therefore less gone?”

All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.

       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, testing their heads in sprightly dance.

       The waves beside them danced, but they outdid the sparkling leaves in glee; a poet could not be but gay, in such a jocund company! I gazed ー and gazed ー but little thought:

“For oft, when on my couch I live vacant or pensive mood, they flash upon that inward eye which is a bliss of solitude; and then my heart with pleasure fills and dances with the daffodils.”

       I went down to the river, I set down on the bank. I tried to think but couldn’t, so I jumped in and sank.

       I came up once and hollered. I came up twice and cried. If that water hadn’t a-been so cold, I might have sunk and died.

       But it was cold in that water! It was cold!

       So, since I’m still here; livin’ the life, I guess I’ll live on. I could have died for love ー but for livin’ I was born. Though you may hear me holler and you may see me cry, I’ll be dogged, sweet baby, if you gonna see me die.

       Life is fine, fine as wine! Life is fine.

       I stand amid the roar of a surf-tormented shore, and I hold within my hand grains of the golden sand ー how few. Yet how they creep through my fingers to the deep while I weep ... while I weep!

       Dear God! Can I not grasp them with a tighter grasp? Can I not save one from the pitiless wave?

       Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?