For a poem synonymous with solitude, William Wordsworth’s I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud was a surprisingly collaborative affair. It was not the product of a poetry workshop, exactly.

Rydal Mount was the home of renowned Cumbrian poet William Wordsworth from 1813 to 1850. Wordsworth, whose poems included I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, lived there until his death at age 80.

The Lakeland poet William Wordsworth didn’t always get it right. ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud,’ he wrote. As any resident of Cumberland and Westmorland knows only too well, no cloud in the Lake ...