I wandered lonely as a cloud

Inspired by William Wordsworth's poem I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, it was led by Ullswater Valley-based potter Helen Ratcliffe, and made by 500 volunteers.

The pedagogical strategy of “close reading” that evolved in Eliot’s wake, wherein students are taught to focus exclusively on the words on the page—and taught that the “I” of “I wandered lonely as a cloud” is not Wordsworth but the poem’s speaker, a literary character—these are the starting points of every consequential contemporary literary-critical argument.

Her husband is with Sonia, listening to their youngest recite poetry in that beautiful lilting voice of hers: "I wandered lonely as a cloud, that floats on high o'er vales and hills..."

Listen to actress Noma Dumezweni on the Today programme read one of the best-known poems in the English language; William Wordsworth's 'I wandered lonely as a cloud', which is also commonly known as 'Daffodils'.

If you love Wordsworth’s poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” you’ll want to head to Ullswater, the lake that inspired him, especially in the spring when the poet’s “golden host of daffodils” bend and sway along the banks, creating a tapestry of yellow.