Wordsworth's 'Daffodils' is all set to rap

During our last read-meet in Mumbai in March, while we were discussing the characteristics of a good poem, one of the writers drew our attention to the magic of William Wordsworth's words that has delighted generations of people across the globe. She spoke about how he describes the crowd of daffodils, "tossed and reeled and danced, and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake”.

200 years after his famous 'Daffodils' poem 'I Wandered Lonely as A Cloud' was published, it has been turned into a rap for the YouTube generation to reach new audiences and inspire people of new generation.

David Wilson, the Robert Woof Director of the Wordsworth Trust, said: "Wordsworth's poem, 'I wandered lonely as a cloud', always achieves very high ratings in any survey of favorite English poems.”It is a poem about the mind's growing awareness over time of the deepening value of an experience, in this case observing the dancing daffodils.

The new 'hip-hop' version of the famous poem and an accompanying pop video can be listened to and watched for free at Cumbria Tourism's website at www.golakes.co.uk/wordsworthrap.

The modern re-working manages to stay true to the original sentiment but with some slight variation of the lyrics. The video was shot on the banks of Lake Ullswater which provided the original inspiration for the poem, as well as around Ullswater Steamers, the grounds and gardens of the luxury Sharrow Bay Hotel, and Grasmere where Wordsworth made his home.