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 Outdid 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.
[Illustration: A HOST OF GOLDEN DAFFODILS]
When we look at this little poem we see at a glance that the stanzas are all the same length, that the rhyme scheme is _ababcc_ (see "To My Infant Son," Vol. VI), and that the indentation at the beginning of the lines corresponds with the rhymes. This poem, then, is perfectly regular in form.
There are other things, however, which go to make up perfect structure in a poem. First and foremost, the words are so arranged that the accented syllables in any given line come at regular intervals. Take, for instance, the first two lines of this poem. Each line contains eight syllables. If you number these syllables 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, you will see that it is the second one each time that bears the accent, thus:
I wan´dered lone´ly as´ a cloud´ That floats´ on high´ o'er vales´ and hills´.
Now, if you read the four remaining lines of the stanza you will see that in each one of these the second syllable bears the accent, until you come to the last line, where in the word _fluttering_, which, by the way, you pronounce _flutt´ring_, the accent is on the first syllable. If the poet did not now and then change the accent a little it would become tedious and monotonous.
It is a very simple matter, you see, to separate every line of poetry into groups of syllables, and in every group to place one accented syllable and one or more syllables that are not accented. Such a group is called a _foot_. Thus in each of the first two lines in this poem there are four _feet_. Each _foot_ contains an accented and an unaccented syllable.