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Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

To Daffodils


              1Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
              2      You haste away so soon;
              3As yet the early-rising sun
              4      Has not attain'd his noon.
              5                Stay, stay,
              6           Until the hasting day
              7                Has run
              8           But to the even-song;
              9And, having pray'd together, we
            10Will go with you along.

            11We have short time to stay, as you,
            12      We have as short a spring;
            13As quick a growth to meet decay,
            14      As you, or anything.
            15                We die
            16           As your hours do, and dry
            17                Away,
            18           Like to the summer's rain;
            19Or as the pearls of morning's dew,
            20Ne'er to be found again.

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: Robert Herrick, Hesperides (London: for John Williams and F. Eglesfield to be sold by Thomas Hunt, 1648), of which a section called "His Noble Numbers: or, his Pious Pieces" has a separate title-page dated 1647. Facs. edn. Menston: Scolar, 1969. PR 3512 H4 1648A ROBA
First publication date: 1648
RPO poem editor: N. J. Endicott
RP edition: 3RP 1.202.
Recent editing: 4:2002/2/6

Rhyme: abcbddceae

Other poems by Robert Herrick

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