This poem by Robert Herrick uses personification and imagery to compare the short lifespan of daffodils to humans. The speaker asks the daffodils to stay until evening so they can pray together before the flowers disappear, just as humans have but a short time on Earth. Through metaphors, similes and other literary devices, the poem reflects on the fleeting nature of both daffodils and human lives.
3. 1
Fair daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attain'd his noon.
Robert Herrick
To Daffodils
Personification
Alliteration
Personification
Personification
Metaphor
Symbol
4. Stay, stay
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the evensong;
And, having pray'd together, we
Will go with you along.
Personification
Symbol
Repetition
Imagery
5. 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.
Metaphor
Simile
Assonance
6. 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.
Alliteration
Simile
Assonance