The inward eye not only imagines the scene, rather it recreates it to a degree where the poet can actually see it and he is transported again and again through association back to the sublime. .
Wordsworth relies heavily on his belief in the power of association. He believes that the "Author makes a formal engagement that he will gratify certain known habits of association" and in a state of excitement, these chains of association breakdown (574). In "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" Wordsworth reflects upon these enlightening, healthful associations to fill his heart with pleasure. It is interesting, however to note that Wordsworth also explains that in this excited state (where ideas to not follow each other in any particular order), there exists a "painful feeling which will always be found intermingled"(580). Perhaps this explains why "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," although possessing nothing overtly somber, carries with it's pleasurable meter an underlying tone of sadness. In order to reach the fullest understanding of pleasure, one must also know despair.
The suggestion that such powerful emotions can be roused by something so seemingly insignificant as a field of daffodils is central to Wordsworthian ideology. He notes that for all of his poems, "the principal object [. . .] was to make the incidents of common life interesting [. . .]. the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature" (574-75). Rather than being forced into feeling by what he deems "gross and violent stimulation" Wordsworth feels that finding beauty in nature is the key to true pleasure. The purity of nature contrasts the monotony of civic and social life to awaken man's quiescent passions. .
The feeling that is produced from Wordsworth's poetry is a reflection of that which the Poet feels. Wordsworth emphasizes that "there is no object standing between the Poet and the image of things [.