REVISE – Daffodils

Reorder events as they happen in the poem. Write the correct numbers (1-7) in the gaps.

The speaker is now at home on his couch, thinking.       ________
He sees a host of golden daffodils 'beside the lake, beneath the trees'.        ________
His heart fills with pleasure and dances with the flowers.       ________
The daffodils seem to be dancing.       ________
He wanders in solitude.       ________
He realises that a poet could only be joyful with such company.       ________
The daffodils flash upon his 'inward eye'.        ________

In the poem, verbs of sight and movement are used in relation to the poet. Read the meanings attributed to each verb expression and then complete the text with the words given.

Stanza 1
wandered lonely = to walk without a specific purpose or destination
at once I saw = to perceive suddenly
Stanza 2
saw I at a glance = to perceive actively and quickly
Stanza 3
gaze = to look intently at something


look • sees • passivity • connection • engagement • focussed

The first verb, wandered, suggests a sense of ________ and a lack of direction. This changes when the poet suddenly ________ the daffodils. He becomes more ________ as he begins to see them not as a simple crowd but as a host, or a never-ending line of dancing flowers. This active perception is captured in the phrase 'saw I at a glance', showing his growing ________ with the scene. Finally, the word gaze shows the poet's complete absorption as he stops to ________ intently at the flowers, moving from simple observation to a deeper ________.

The poem perfectly outlines Wordsworth's idea of poetic creation. For each stage (1–8), choose the correct element of Wordsworth's poetic process from the list.

Stage 1 – The Daffodils    ________
Stage 2 – Their observation by the speaker     ________
Stage 3 – The joy felt at their company     ________
Stage 4 – The recollection of the experience     ________
Stage 5 – The feeling of intense pleasure      ________
Stage 6 – The generation of art       ________
Stage 7 – The poem is read widely by others       ________
Stage 8 – The emotion felt by the poet is shared by the readers       ________

Look at the last stanza of the poem. In the image, four colours are used to highlight different aspects of the poem's resolution. Match each colour (1–4) to its correct significance (A–D).
Write the correct letters in the gaps.

1 Green ________
2 Orange ________
3 Blue ________
4 Red ________

A The memory of the daffodils turns solitude from a negative state into a positive one.
B The emotion is heartfelt joy and sense of belonging.
C The change in tense: the encounter with nature was a specific past event, while the joy it brings is a continual experience.
D Seeing with the mind is even more powerful than seeing with the physical eye: the vision of the daffodils becomes a profound inner experience.

Read the text which reflects on the process of imagination in the poem and decide if the statements are true or false. Then look at the prompts in brackets and write some extra reflections in your exercise book. You can use the final text as revision material for your test.

In the poem Daffodils, the inward eye is more than just memory. (Refer to STEP 3 to reinforce this concept.) It acts as a transformative agent through which the poet perceives the complex and shared life of nature, moving beyond the simple recollection of a past experience. (Refer to the concept of re-creative power of memory as explained in the text 'The importance of memory' on page 271 of your textbook. Do you think this power is the imagination?) Wordsworth suggests that the poet's initial loneliness is the result of his separation from a universal order, which includes everything in nature, from the waves and trees to the daffodils. (Refer to the similes used in the poem that reveal the aspects of solitude and universal order.) However, by using his imagination to contemplate this order, the poet finds a connection that allows him to feel less alone. The poem invites us to realise that we are all individual aspects of this same flow, and in moments of solitude, our imagination can reconnect us to this universal dance, filling our hearts with joy and making our loneliness feel like a blissful state. (Refer to the text 'Humans and nature' on page 270 of your textbook to enrich this idea further.)