“To Daffodils” by Robert Herrick

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 even-song;
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.

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Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

Robert Herrick is a son of a successful goldsmith. He is a religious priest who

graduated from the university with an MA. He is called “the greatest songwriter ever
born of English race.” He wrote about 1,400 poems, mostly very short. Many of his
poems are brief epigrams. He wrote elegies, satires, epigrams, love songs to imaginary
mistresses, marriage songs, complimentary verse to friends and patrons and celebrations
of rustic and ecclesiastical festivals. The appeal of his poetry lies in its truth to human
sentiments and its perfection of form and style. His lyrics are notable for their technical
mastery and the interplay of thought, rhythm and imagery that they display.
As a songwriter, Herrick wrote in the theme of “carpe diem,” or “seize the day.”
“Carpe diem,” Latin for “seize the day,” is a phrase used by the Roman poet Horace but
frequently a theme in much later literature. The Cavalier poets, 17 th century lyric poets,
wrote about the “carpe diem” concept. The carpe diem poems stress the temporality of
youth and the shortness of life. They were often dark and melancholy in their themes and
tones.

1. Themes of the poem

 The short-lived nature of life, the fleeting passage of time.
 Humans have a very short life in this world like the flowers.
 Beauty is not going to stay forever.

2. The Speaker
The speaker of the poem is the poet. He uses the first person pronoun “we” instead of
“I” to shift the point of view away from just him and makes it universal so that everyone
shares his ideas.

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3. Setting
The surface meaning of this poem concerns a speaker who is moved by the sight of
wilting flowers. The speaker makes a strong link between the experiences of the flowers
in the natural setting and our own lives, thus exposing the deep meaning of his poem (an
abstract idea), which is the shortness of life.

4. Content (Summary)
In this poem, “To Daffodils,” the poet Robert Herrick compares humans’ life with
the life of daffodils. He is so sad because the life of the daffodils is very short. He has
struck a note of mourning at the fast dying of the daffodils. The poet asks the daffodils to
stay until the day ends with the evening prayer. After praying together, he wants to go
with them because like the daffodils, humans also have a very transient life. Humans
have short spring or youth which ends up very quickly. Their life is as short as the rain of
the summer season which comes for a very short time and the dew-drops in the morning
which vanish away and never come back again.

5. Figures of speech
(i) Apostrophe:
-“Fair Daffodils”
The poet addresses the daffodils that are personified.
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(ii) Personification:
-“ Fair Daffodils, we weep to see /You haste away so soon”
The poet personifies the daffodils and attributes several human qualities to them.
-“ Until the hasting day/ Has run”
The poet personifies the day.
-“ As your hours do, and dry/ Away,”
The hours are personified.
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(iii) Simile:
-“ We have short time to stay, as you,/ We have as short a spring;/ As quick a
growth to meet decay,/ As you”
The poet compares the brevity of humans’ life to the brief flowering of spring daffodils.
-“ Like to the summer’s rain;”
The poet compares the life of humans, which parallels the life of the daffodils, to the
rain of the summer.
-“Or as the pearls of morning’s dew,”
The poet compares the life of humans to the morning’s dew.
************************************************************************
(iv) Metaphor:
-“Or as the pearls of morning’s dew,”
The poet makes an indirect comparison between the morning’s dew and the pearls.
************************************************************************
(v) Symbol:
The poet uses “spring” as a symbol of youth.
************************************************************************
(vi) Imagery
The poet uses two kinds of imagery: visual and auditory.
-Visual imagery: “Fair Daffodils,” “the early-rising sun,” “the summer’s rain” and
“the pearls of morning’s dew”
-Auditory imagery: “we weep” and “the even-song;/ And, having pray’d together”
***********************************************************************
(vii) Repetition
-The repetitions of “stay,” “short,” “as you,” etc.

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 (viii) Alliteration
-“we weep,” “so soon,” “time to,” “Will … with,” “do … dry,” etc.
**********************************************************************
(ix) Consonance
-“Has … his”

6. Tone
There is a definite sad and melancholy tone that surrounds the poem. It arises out of
the realization that life is short and beauty is not going to stay forever.

7. Structure
“To Daffodils” is a short lyric divided into two stanzas of ten lines. The poem has an
unorthodox rhyme scheme and unfixed meter. The language is simple, clear and easy to
be understood which makes the poem more close to the readers. With his simple
language, the poet has painted the cycle of daffodils’ life in a beautiful way. There are no
very strange and complicated sentences in this poem. Most of the sentences obey the
grammatical rules. There is also an imperative sentence in the poem: “Stay, stay,” which
makes the expression more forceful and convincing.
The words used by the speaker to convey the meaning of the poem are accurate, vivid,
expressive and plentiful. In order to describe the brevity of the daffodils’ life, the speaker
uses such expressions as “haste away,” “growth to meet decay,” “die,” “dry Away,” etc.
Most of the words of the poem are monosyllabic and used in their denotative sense. The
poet also uses short and long lines that help him in conveying his themes.

A Literary Analysis of “To Daffodils”

Robert Herrick’s “To Daffodils” is a short lyric divided into two stanzas, the first
addressing the daffodils and the second moving on to people and life in general. Herrick
deals with various themes in this poem including: the short-lived nature of life and
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beauty, the fleeting passage of time and the shortness of humans’ life. The poet’s
message throughout this poem is that life is short, and the world is beautiful, love is
splendid, and we must use the short time we live to make the most of it. All these themes
make “To Daffodils” a perfect example of a carpe diem poem, which stresses the
temporality of youth and the shortness of life.
The speaker of “To Daffodils” is the poet. He uses the first person pronoun “we”
instead of “I” to shift the point of view away from just him and makes it universal so that
everyone shares his ideas. He exposes a universal truth about this world, the shortness of
life.
The surface meaning of this poem concerns a speaker who is moved by the sight of
wilting flowers. The speaker makes a strong link between the experiences of the flowers
in the natural setting and our own lives, thus exposing the deep meaning of his poem (an
abstract idea), which is the shortness of life.
Herrick begins his poem by addressing the daffodils: “Fair Daffodils.” He expresses
his sadness to see the beautiful daffodils being wasted away very quickly. The duration of
their brightness is so short that it seems even the rising sun still has not reached the
noontime. Thus, in the very beginning, there is a note of mourning or a touch of sadness
at the fast dying of the daffodils. The poet personifies the daffodils by making a
conversation with these beautiful flowers. He uses apostrophe by addressing the
personified daffodils: “Fair Daffodils.” Then the poet asks the daffodils to stay until the
day ends with the evening prayer. Here, we find another example of personification:
“Until the hasting day/ Has run,” the personification of the “day.” The poet says that
after praying together, they will accompany the daffodils because like the flowers,
humans too have a very short life.
In this stanza, the poet uses two kinds of imagery: visual and auditory imagery. “Fair
Daffodils” and “the early-rising sun” are examples of visual imagery whereas “we weep”

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and “the evensong; / And having pray’d together” are examples of auditory imagery. We
also find examples of alliteration as in “we weep,” “so soon,” “Will … with,” etc.
Herrick also uses consonance as in “Has … his.” The use of such sound devices makes
the lines beautiful and musical. Repetition is also used by the poet by repeating “stay.”
The use of short lines (such as “Stay, stay,” and “Has run”) and short words (such as
“we,” “to,” “see,” “so,” “As,” “yet,” “sun,” “day,” “run,” etc.) along with his use of such
expressions as “haste away,” “so soon,” “the hasting day” and “ Has run” help the poet to
emphasize the shortness of life.
In the second stanza, Herrick makes a direct comparison between the life of the
daffodils and humans’ life: “We have short time to stay, as you,/ We have as short a
spring;/ As quick a growth to meet decay,/ As you.” He says that the daffodils and the
humans have a very short life. Both have short youth and both grow very fast to be
destroyed later. His repetition of “as you” emphasizes the strong relation between the life
of the daffodils and the life of humans. Hours are also personified: “As your hours do,
and dry/ Away.” Thus, after comparing the daffodils to humans, the poet turns to the
objects of nature. By using similes, the poet compares the life of humans, which also
parallels the life of the daffodils, to “the summer’s rain” and the “morning’s dew”:
“Ne’er to be found again.”
Like the first stanza, Herrick also uses visual imagery such as “the summer’s rain” and
“the pearls of morning’s dew.” He employs metaphor in “the pearls of morning’s dew”
by comparing the dewdrops of the morning to “the pearls” to emphasize their beauty.
Again, we find the use of alliteration as in “time to” and “do … dry.” In this stanza, the
poet also uses short lines (“We die” and “Away”) and short words (“to,” “as,” “we,”
“die,” “do,” “dry,” “dew,” etc.) to emphasize the shortness of life. His choice of words
like “short” and “quick” also suggests the brevity of life.

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 In this poem, there is a definite sad and melancholy tone that surrounds it which
arises out of the realization that life is short and beauty is not going to stay forever. The
sad tone of the poem is also reflected through his choice of words and phrases such as
“weep,” “decay,” “die,” “dry Away,” etc.
“To Daffodils” is a short lyric divided into two stanzas of ten lines. It has unorthodox
rhyme scheme and unfixed meter. The language of the poem is simple, clear and easy to
be understood which makes the poem more close to the readers. With his simple
language, the poet has painted the cycle of the daffodils’ life in a beautiful way. There
are no very strange and complicated sentences in this poem. Most of the sentences obey
the grammatical rules. There is also an imperative sentence in the poem such as “Stay,
stay,” which makes the expression more forceful and convincing. The words used by the
speaker to convey the meaning of the poem are accurate, vivid, expressive and plentiful.
For example, in order to describe the brevity of the daffodils’ life, the speaker uses such
expressions as “haste away,” “growth to meet decay,” “die,” “dry Away,” etc. Most of
the words of the poem are monosyllabic and used in their denotative sense. The poet also
uses short and long lines which help him to convey his themes. In short, the content of
the poem and its beautiful style transmit effectively the poet’s idea that life is short and
the beautiful moments of our life quickly pass away, “Ne’er to be found again.”