A BUNCH OF LENT LILIES
Reading edition
Here three Poets treat the same flower each from his own distinct and delightful point of view. To the first it appeals as the flower of courage, the brave early comer; to the second it is the early goer, the flower of a too swift departure—though daffodils really bloom for a fairly long time, as flowers go; the third is grateful for an imperishable recollection.
Daffodils
... Daffodils That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty.
Shakespeare.
To Daffodils
Fair daffodils, we weep to see You haste away so soon; As yet the early-rising sun Has not attain’d his noon. Stay, stay Until the hasting day Has run But to the evensong; And, having pray’d 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.
Robert Herrick.
Daffodils
I wander’d 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 stretch’d 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 Outdid 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.
William Wordsworth.