Lonely

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
by William Wordsworth

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
Out-did 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.

Of course I'm lonely when I am alone. What I hate is being lonely when there are other people present.

When you are lonely the best thing to do is to think of a kite. He is up in the air all alone, but he can see across the entire land. When he sees all the other kites in the air in other parts of the land, he smiles, for now he is not so lonely.

Look up to the sky.
See that face in the clouds?
Wave.

One of my nicest Japanese prints (from the nineteenth century) shows both adults and children flying kites on New Year's Day. I wonder whether, for the Japanese, this isn't a particularly therapeutic activity – escaping into the loneliness and individuality of the upper atmosphere, when it's so difficult to be independent and alone on the crowded grounds of their homeland.