Britain's official guide to canals, rivers and lakes

Tuesday 2nd December 2008

Literary Ullswater

On a stormy April day in 1802, William and Dorothy Wordsworth embarked upon a walk around Ullswater. During their stroll they came upon a field of daffodils, a pretty sight which inspired Dorothy to pen a description in her journal. She wrote how the flowers 'tossed and reeled and danced and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind, that blew upon them over the lake.'

These words undoubtedly inspired Wordsworth's famous Daffodils poem, composed in 1804 and first published in 1807. The poem we know today:

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;

is the second version, published in 1815.