To Daffodils

by Robert Herrick·1648·Hesperides

robert-herrick/ #lyric #nature #mortality #1640s

First published in Hesperides (London, 1648); text from The Hesperides & Noble Numbers, ed. Alfred Pollard (London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1898).

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 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.

cd ~