"Diaphenia, like the Daffadowndilly, White as the sun, fair as the Lilly, Heigh, ho! how I do love thee!"
But however it derived its pretty names, it was the favourite flower of our ancestors as a garden flower, and especially as the flower for making garlands, a custom very much more common then than it is now. It was the favourite of all English poets. Gower describes the Narcissus--
"For in the winter fresh and faire The flowres ben, which is contraire To kind, and so was the folie Which fell of his surquedrie"--_i.e._, of Narcissus.
_Confes. Aman._ lib. prim. (1. 121 Paulli).
Shakespeare must have had a special affection for it, for in all his descriptions there is none prettier or more suggestive than Perdita's short but charming description of the Daffodil (No. 2). A small volume might be filled with the many poetical descriptions of this "delectable and sweet-smelling flower," but there are some which are almost classical, and which can never be omitted, and which will bear repetition, however well we know them. Milton says, "The Daffodillies fill their cups with tears."[74:1] There are Herrick's well-known lines--
"Fair Daffodils, we weep to see You haste away so soon, As yet the early-rising sun Has not attained his noon; Stay, stay, Until the hastening day Has run But to the even-song; And having prayed 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 dew, Ne'er to be found again."
And there are Keats' and Shelley's well-known and beautiful lines which bring down the praises of the Daffodil to our own day. Keats says--
"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever, Its loveliness increases, it will never Pass into nothingness. . . . . . . . . . . In spite of all Some shape of beauty moves away the pale From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon For simple sheep; and such are Daffodils With the green world they live in."
"Narcissus, the fairest among them all, Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess, Till they die of their own dear loveliness."