To Daffodils Analysis

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.

.: :.

.A constant theme of the songs written by Robert Herrick is the short-lived nature of life, the fleeting passage of time. We find a note of melancholy/sadness in his poem which arises out of the realization that beauty is not going to stay forever.
In his poem ‘To Daffodils’, the poet Robert Herrick begins by saying that we grieve to see the beautiful daffodils being wasted away very quickly. The duration of their gloom is so short that it seems even the rising sun still hasn’t reached the noon-time. Thus, in the very beginning the poet has struck a note of mourning at the fast dying of daffodils.
The poet then addresses the daffodils and asks them to stay until the clay ends with the evening prayer. After praying together he says that they will also accompany the daffodils. This is so because like flowers men too have a very transient life and even the youth is also very short-lived.
“We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a spring.”
The poet symbolically refers to the youth as spring in these lines. He equates/compares human life with the life of daffodils. Further he says that both of them grow very fast to be destroyed later. Just like the short duration of the flowers, men too die away soon. 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 return again. Thus, the poet after comparing the flowers to humans, later turns to the objects of nature – he has compared the life of daffodils with summer rain, dew drops.
The central idea presented by the poet in this poem is that like the flowers we humans have a very short life in this world. The poet laments that we too life all other beautiful things soon slip into the shadow and silence of grave. A sad and thoughtful mood surrounds the poem.

| Posted on 2009-11-20 | by a guest

.: :.

bored as hell in english :)...cheers for the notes, you have made our lives a hell of a lot easier.

| Posted on 2009-09-07 | by a guest

.: :.

The main theme of the poem is about the ravages of time as used by Shakespeare and many other poets in their sonnets.
Here the narrator is advising the virgins to make use of their youth whilst they still have it on their side. He warns them that if they don't heed to his advice their condition might be like the flowers who smile brightly when they bloom , but it's only ephemeral because by the time they they soak themselves in their beauty, it's time for them to fade away or wither.
In the second stanza the narrator uses the metaphor of Sun to convey the theme of passing of time. He says, as the glorious lamp of heaven, the "Sun" when in his full energey is at the highest point, fades away when it's time for him to finish his race.
In the third stanza the narrator is convinced that the best time for everybody to enjoy is "youth" when your blood is warm i.e. when you have beauty and energy on your side. Once they leave your side you will only face the worst time of your life and nothing less.
The last stanza is a kind of didacticism, wherein the narrator advises the coy virgins not to waste their prime time because they won't get it back once they have lost it. It's no use repenting afterwards about the things they could have done in their youth once they have outgrown it because of their coyness.
Written by : Alaa Cali4nia Boy

| Posted on 2009-07-27 | by a guest

.: :.

In this poem also the main theme is about the fleeting nature of time , which has been illustrated with the help of metaphor of Daffodils.
In the first stanza the poet is supplicating the Daffodils not to wilt so soon, because still the rising sun has not attained his full noon . The poet feels melancholy when he sees them haste away so soon, so he request them so stay for some more time till the hasting day has run till the evening song. He tells the Daffodils that even he can join them on their journey having finished his days prayer.
In the second and last stanza the poet compares human being with that of Daffodils in the sense that like them we too have short life. We also grow like them and after attaining maturity (in age) decay like them. Our death is compared to that of summer's rain, or as the pearls of morning dew never to be found again.Just as the morning's dew and summer's rain dries away fast and forgotten, we too once dead get faded in the oblivion.
Written by : Alaa Cali4nia Boy

| Posted on 2009-07-27 | by a guest

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A summary of meaning of this poem:
Herrick compares the brevity of human life to the brief flowering of Spring daffodils. The last three lines suggest a finality ('Never to be found again.'). Is this at odds with the religious sentiment of the first verse ('evensong', 'prayed together')? No, Herrick is only talking about the body's eventual death. He almost certainly believes in God and in an afterlife.
magine it is late spring. As your thoughts wander, your eyes drift out the window to the sunny backyard. Birds are chirping and the air is warm. The garden is full of life, as flowers bloom and butterflies flutter about. But there is one thing wrong with this happy picture. The daffodils that bloomed in this garden just a few weeks ago are brown and wilted: dead. This is the picture illustrated in Robert Herrick’s poem, "To Daffodils." The theme of the poem is that life, whether floral or human, is short and usually ends sooner than desired. Herrick uses the rhythm, structure, and symbolism of the poem to support his theme.
The first technique that Herrick uses in his poem is rhythm; the rhythm of the poem is very short and disconnected, because it is composed of many short lines and words. Even the poem itself is very brief in length. A few short lines in this poem are: "Stay, stay", "Has run", "We die", and "Away." These lines are all created with one or two words and each contains only two syllables. They are shorter than the average line of four to five words. Some of the many short words that are used in the poem are: "we", "to", "so", "as", "go", "a", "or", "do", "of", "be", "yet", "and", "but", and "the." Each of these words has only a few letters and only one syllable, so they are said very quickly.
Written by : Alaa Cali4nia Boy

| Posted on 2009-07-27 | by a guest

.: :.

The poem is broken into two stanzas, the first addressing the daffodils and the second moving on to people and life in general. The poem moves along in such a way that the daffodils addressed then they eventually die, and likewise we, as people, follow the same pattern. The poems unusual rhyme scheme, diction as well as the voice of the speaker emphasizes the poems stoic nature and its eventual acceptance of death.
Robert Herrick was well known for his use of flowers as subjects and often commented on their brevity of life or as an analogy to love. In one such poem, Why Flowers Change Color, Herrick touches on the topic of love and virginity as a flower, but still keeps a very close contact to his sharp dry nature that is found in “To Daffodils”.
THESE fresh beauties (we can prove)
Once were virgins sick of love,
Turn'd to flowers. Still in some
Colours go and colours come.
1
Like most of his works, this poem, along with To Daffodils, tackles very complex subjects but tries to simplify them down to an almost meditative quality.
The perspective of the speaker in this poem illuminates the point of view Herrick has on the overall subject of death, but also keeps to his well known meditative quality. By using the word "we" instead of "I" or any other indication of who the speaker is, Herrick shifts the point of view away from just him and makes it so everyone shares his ideas. Herrick uses us in the sense that everyone agrees with the sadness of the daffodils departing, but as everyone is not there talking to the daffodil, Herrick alone address it.
Written by : Alaa Cali4nia Boy

| Posted on 2009-07-27 | by a guest

.: :.

I feel that the real objecive of this poem was not to insight an idea of youthful death. This is because the average daffodil life can be seen to be longer than a human life. If you refering to their flowering pattern then it can be seen that the Average flowering span of a daffodil can range from 6 weeks to 6 months. After blooming the daffodil plant rebuilds its bulb. This is something very complexed and would take much concentration to do, something that a young person would find difficulty in exercising.
From this i think its clear to say that the death of the daffodil does not represent a true loss in adolescent life. I feel that the poem is trying to exert a pure sorrow of death as opposed to the loss of young life. I feel that it is trying to challenge the real roots of human life. To explore the extent to which we take our lives with as much importance as others. The daffodil is a plant that germinates its seeds in order to create bulbs for new life. If we look at how we help to produce new life we can only see that our own ways of producing life only seeks to benefit us.
The poems of Robert Herrick contain such freshness livelyness which can be feel whenever someone read it. And the musucality and rythm please yous ears with melody. His another unique quality is his poems are often addressed to someone or something as To Daffodils or To anthea etc.
The way the author describes the daffodils are all adjectives of happiness. The man also realizes while watching the daffodils that the only real happiness that you can get, comes from the natural world and cannot be achieved by wealth. The Man finds happiness at home alone when he is dreaming because dreaming is the greatest happiness in being alone. This happines fills the void in the man’s heart, and he is as happy as the daffodils.
Written by : Alaa Cali4nia Boy

| Posted on 2009-07-27 | by a guest

.: :.

Herrick, the man who wrote that ridiculous “gather ye rosebuds while ye may” poem, was a divine with an effusive and suspiciously secular personality, to judge from his poems, in any event. He was not quite a cavalier poet, of course, but he was also something of an adventurer (as chaplain to the duke of Buckingham, he participated in the military disaster at the île de Rhé, when Buckingham’s efforts to relieve the siege of the Calvinist city of La Rochelle collapsed). Daffodils can seem a bit trite as a metaphor, I suppose, but of course to the seventeenth century aesthetic, those daffodils were a perfect image. The beauty of nature, its spontaneity, and also the transitory nature of life, especially of human life. There is a carpe diem sense behind this work, and Herrick carries it out beautifully. Scan this poem and look at how it brims with monosyllabic words in alliterative sequence (die, do, dry, for instance). It’s an impressive work of studied, very carefully studied, simplicity, where the word choice and form closely match images and thoughts. And across the sea in Holland, Ambrosius Bosschaert (the Younger) is painting much the same concepts, with oil on canvas, picking a bouquet that speaks more of the end of May (for my garden in any event), roses, iris, convalaria, fritullaria. But for a Hollander of that age, the message was the same: enjoy the splendor that nature offers, but don’t forget the fleeting nature of this beauty, the fact that it will pass, decay, fade, very quickly. The world is warming to the green fuse, and the thought of transitition couldn’t be more timely.
Written by : Alaa Cali4nia Boy

| Posted on 2009-07-27 | by a guest

.: :.

We find a note of melancholy/sadness in his poem which arises out of the realization that beauty is not going to stay forever.
In his poem ‘To Daffodils’, the poet Robert Herrick begins by saying that we grieve to see the beautiful daffodils being wasted away very quickly. The duration of their gloom is so short that it seems even the rising sun still hasn’t reached the noon-time. Thus, in the very beginning the poet has struck a note of mourning at the fast dying of daffodils.
The poet then addresses the daffodils and asks them to stay until the clay ends with the evening prayer. After praying together he says that they will also accompany the daffodils. This is so because like flowers men too have a very transient life and even the youth is also very short-lived.
“We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a spring.”
The poet symbolically refers to the youth as spring in these lines. He equates/compares human life with the life of daffodils. Further he says that both of them grow very fast to be destroyed later. Just like the short duration of the flowers, men too die away soon. 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 return again. Thus, the poet after comparing the flowers to humans, later turns to the objects of nature – he has compared the life of daffodils with summer rain, dew drops.
The central idea presented by the poet in this poem is that like the flowers we humans have a very short life in this world. The poet laments that we too life all other beautiful things soon slip into the shadow and silence of grave.
Written by : Alaa Cali4nia Boy

| Posted on 2009-07-27 | by a guest

.: :.

I think this poem is about a lonely and sad man. the man finds joy and happiness in the process of watching the bright dancing golden daffodils. The way the author describes the daffodils are all adjectives of happiness. The man also realizes while watching the daffodils that the only real happiness that you can get, comes from the natural world and cannot be achieved by wealth. The Man finds happiness at home alone when he is dreaming because dreaming is the greatest happiness in being alone. This happines fills the void in the man's heart, and he is as happy as the daffodils.

| Posted on 2009-06-11 | by a guest

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I think that poem about the daffodils (spring flowers)..

| Posted on 2009-05-06 | by a guest

.: :.

I think it has something to do with like, a field of flowers or something like that...

| Posted on 2009-03-27 | by a guest

.: :.

i asked you for the bloody analysis not to analyze it myself- arsewipe

| Posted on 2009-01-13 | by a guest

.: Guide :.

Hi I am Nasu I love to play Cards And have no knowledge about this STUPID poem I am going mad.
-Nasu

| Posted on 2008-05-10 | by a guest

.: Guide :.

Hi I am Nasu I love to play Cards And have no knowledge about this STUPID poem I am going mad.
-Nasu

| Posted on 2008-05-10 | by a guest

.: the POET :.

The poems of Robert Herrick contain such freshness livelyness which can be feel whenever someone read it. And the musucality and rythm please yous ears with melody. His another unique quality is his poems are often addressed to someone or something as To Daffodils or To anthea etc.

| Posted on 2007-11-22 | by a guest

.: i disagree :.

I feel that the real objecive of this poem was not to insight an idea of youthful death. This is because the average daffodil life can be seen to be longer than a human life. If you refering to their flowering pattern then it can be seen that the Average flowering span of a daffodil can range from 6 weeks to 6 months. After blooming the daffodil plant rebuilds its bulb. This is something very complexed and would take much concentration to do, something that a young person would find difficulty in exercising.
From this i think its clear to say that the death of the daffodil does not represent a true loss in adolescent life. I feel that the poem is trying to exert a pure sorrow of death as opposed to the loss of young life. I feel that it is trying to challenge the real roots of human life. To explore the extent to which we take our lives with as much importance as others. The daffodil is a plant that germinates its seeds in order to create bulbs for new life. If we look at how we help to produce new life we can only see that our own ways of producing life only seeks to benefit us


| Posted on 2007-02-02 | by a guest

.: :.

I think this poem is about a person who just lost someone dear to their heart. The boy who died was young. I think he was young because daffodils are spring flowers that die young. The person could be at the funeral, and he is speaking to the boy. The setting is in spring because daffodils bloom in the spring. The poem is telling us that people die young too. We never know when our time will come. Our lives con be lost like that. Life is precious, and we must not take it forgranted. Another interpretation is that the young boy has died of cancer because a daffodil is the logo for cancer, but that might not be because Robert Herrick wrote this poem in the 1600s.

| Posted on 2005-06-06 | by Approved Guest