109. Lonely as a cloud

Great moments in the history of English poetry No. 47: William Wordsworth comes home to tea with his sister Dorothy after a walk on the moors in the rain.

Dorothy: „Welcome home, dear William. Where, if I may be so bold as to enquire, have you been?

William: „I have been wandering, my dear Dot. Just wandering.“

D: „Wandering, William? In what manner have you been wandering?

W: „In a manner that I think can best be described as lonely.“

D: „Would that be, I wonder, lonely, in the sense of being on your own, or are you using the word to suggest a need or desire of someone else to share your wander? Explain the nature of your lonely wander if you will, Will.“

W: „It can best be compared to the loneliness of a cloud. For they say loneliness is next to cloudiness.“

D: „I never heard them say that.“

W: „Come to think of it, I have never heard them, whoever they may be, say that either. I must have been mistaken. Yet I do aver that I wandered lonely as a cloud.“

D: „But surely, dear Bro, clouds are not lonely. Indeed, as I look through the window at the sky, I cannot see any cloud at all in the bright blue sky.“

W: „That’s exactly my point dear Sis: If there were a cloud in the sky, it would be the only one there and it would be lonely.“

/ B Comber, Gulf Daily News. The Voice of Bahrain

Und damit jetted das Gedicht in meine Anthologie. Welcome, dear!

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

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 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.

Hier mit einer Übersetzung von Walter A. Aue