The Economics of Wandering

“I gazed---and gazed---but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:”

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The above lines from WW’s “I wandered lonely as a cloud” seem to criticize ‘wealth’ on two fronts. The first in that WW did not think about wealth at all while he observed the daffodils and was thus void of any material desires. This runs opposite to the prevailing ideology of the Industrial Revolution where wealth, and more specifically the accumulation of wealth, drove society. Men and women across economic, social and geographical stereotypes began to share in want of profit. Not WW, however, as he is content to passively interact with nature.

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Secondly, the colon at the end of the couplet potentially indicates that WW did in fact derive wealth from this interaction with nature. “Oft when on [his] couch,” WW would recall the memory of the daffodils and would again be happy. Thus, the memory, like an annuity, continues to provide him with utility after his initial wandering. I therefore believe that WW is contrasting the materialism of the IR that was, most likely, a contributing factor to the disconnection between man and nature (i.e. man, and society, are now more interested in acting on, rather than with, nature).