Question

According to this excerpt from "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth, what does the speaker do when he is in a reflective mood?

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.

choices:
He gets melancholy about his life situation.
He thinks of the scene described in the poem.
He reads to escape from the din of city life.
He writes as a release from his worries and fears.

Answer 1

Let's start out with understanding what a reflective mood means. A reflective mood is characterized by quiet thought or contemplation. So with that, let's continue with using the process of elimination-
A) is incorrect, because it doesn't say that he gets *melancholy about his current situation.
B) given the answer choice, and what it's says in the beginning of the second stanza, For oft, when on my couch I lie- In vacant or in pensive mood, would give of the reflection of thinking of the poem.
C) If we read over the poem, we do not see proof/evidence of escaping the city life.
D) Again if we go over the second stanza, he is lying down on a couch and isn't in a proper posture of writing or jotting down his worries or fears.

Proceeding from this, we can clearly eliminate answer choice A, C, & D. Leaving you with answer choice B.

*Melancholy- a feeling of pensive sadness, typically with no obvious cause.