TO DAFFODILS.
Fair daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet, the early-rising sun
Has not attain’d its noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hastening 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 any thing.
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, 1591.