To Daffodils
To Daffodils
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
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.
Publication Start Year
1648
RPO poem Editors
N. J. Endicott
RPO Edition
3RP 1.202.
Rhyme