| Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916. | | | IV. Inevitable
To Daffodils | | By Robert Herrick (1591–1674) |
| | | 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, | 5 |
| Until the hasting day | |
| Has run | |
| But to the evensong; | |
| And, having pray’d together, we | |
| Will go with you along. | 10 |
| |
| 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 | 15 |
| 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. | 20 | | | |
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