To daffodils

General information

Lyricist: Robert Herrick

Settings by composers

• Ernest Farrar SATB
• Henry Hiles SATB
• Arthur Sullivan SATB (v.1, with minor text variations)

Texts and Translations

English text

1  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.