I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought
These lines occur in the third stanza of William Wordsworth's famous poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud". Wordsworth was the exponent of the "Revival of Romanticism" and these lines reflect one of the aspects of his poetic theory.
Wordsworth defines poetry as a "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings... recollected in tranquility". These lines refer to what Wordsworth suggested by "recollected". Once he was roaming around a lake. Suddenly he saw a long-stretch of daffodils along the margin of the bay. The daffodils were fluttering and dancing in the breeze. The scene was so joyous that the poet's heart started dancing with the cheerful daffodils. He kept on looking at the scene for a long time without knowing that this show would be a priceless treasure for him in future. Only after two years the speaker realised that the happy scene often returned to his mind with the same joy and drove him to the emotional exuberance required for the spontaneous overflow of emotions. The recollection of the feelings did not only inspire him to compose the poem, it also led his heart to dance, thus healing his "pensive mood". So, these lines strike at the keynote of Wordsworth's poetic theory.
