NO sooner have daffodils emblazoned gardens and roadside verges with their yellow blooms than they start to fade and wither.
Robert Herrick (1591-1674) observed the phenomenon and drew human analogies.
TO DAFFODILS
Fair daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon:
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attained his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the evensong;
And, having prayed together, we
Will go with you along.
We have short time to stay as you;
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you or anything.
We die,
As your hours do and dry
Away
Like to the summer's rain;
Or as the pearls of morning's dew,
Ne'er to be found again.
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