Of hopes and memories that in those yellow petals grow?
Another to a woman lone, with sorrow worn and spent,
I gave: she took it tearfully; and when I next passed by,
She held it tenderly, and watched it with a serious eye,
As loth that it should fade. Perchance her quickened fancy went,
Where once her footsteps strayed, by mountain stream and copse and glen,
And neighbor-cottages, which now she will not see again.
Fair daffodils, what power lives for us in your gentle mood!
Sure promise of bright spring beyond the changeful stormy ways;
Lessons of quiet love, that bind our last and earliest days;