Dorothy or William??

"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"

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.

To my shame I could not recite all of this poem from the top of my head ~ the first verse, just, and I call myself a Cumbrian. (I had to look it up...). I thought this Wordsworth snippet appropriate today as I had a meeting at Dove Cottage (William and Dorothy Wordsworth's home) and was briefly shown behind the scenes, around the temperature/light controlled archive of original Wordsworth diaries, books and papers. As a 1st year at secondary school we were taught the poem and the local history behind it and nothing could have bored us more, but being there today, and seeing, and being so close to all those manuscripts was really awe-inspiring. Was it William or Dorothy Wordsorth that wrote the poem? ~ Discuss. Join the debate (or if you know nothing of the debate then look it up and join in).