16 pages 32 minutes read

Robert Herrick

To Daffodils

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1665

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Poem Analysis

Analysis: “To Daffodils”

The speaker does not address their poem to another human being, but to specific objects. They salute the “Fair Daffodils” in Line 1. Also, they do not seem to address the flowers as a singular entity, but rather use the first-person plural pronoun “we.” The speaker addresses the daffodils from the perspective of collective human experience, which is how individuals “weep” (Line 1). Yet, it is in the second line readers discover why individuals are so sad. The audience becomes sad when the beautiful daffodils “haste away” (Line 2), and when their blooms fade and die “so soon” (Line 2). Before the blossoms of the daffodils can be fully appreciated and savored, they are gone. The speaker compares this quick blooming and fading of the daffodils to how the “early-rising sun” (Line 3) has not yet reached, or “attain’d” the “noon” position (Line 4). The daffodil tends to bloom in late winter or in early spring, a timeframe positioned in the beginning of the Western calendar. If it is still cold and the weather deters people from going outside, the daffodils cannot be fully appreciated. Similarly, if