To Daffodils

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1665

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Poem Analysis

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Further Reading & Resources

Related Poems

"To the Virgins, to make Much of Time" by Robert Herrick (1648)

Herrick published “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time,” along with “To Daffodils” in his 1648 poetry collection Hesperides. Similar to “To Daffodils,” this poem also details the passage of time and the waning of life. One of Herrick’s most anthologized poems, this work falls into the carpe diem category of poetry because it urges readers to “seize the day” and make the most of their time on earth. Specifically for readers of “To the Virgins,” Herrick is urging his virginal, female addressees to get married before it is too late.

"To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell (1681)

Andrew Marvell was a contemporary of Robert Herrick, and “To His Coy Mistress” shares many similarities with Herrick’s “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time.” Marvell’s poem is also a carpe diem poem and Marvell’s speaker likewise addresses his message to a female audience. As Herrick’s speaker in “To the Virgins” encourages women to marry and not waste their youthful vigor, Marvell’s speaker equally encourages his lover to stop wasting time with temptations and flirtations. If he could, the speaker states he would relish their courtship for as long as possible. Yet, as “Time’s winged chariot” hurries near, he encourages his lover to submit to sensuality and consummate their love.

"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth (1807)

Although Herrick wrote during the Renaissance and Wordsworth’s poem is contextualized in the romantic period of British Literature, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” serves as an opportunity to compare and contrast how two English authors utilize the same central object—daffodils—in their poems. Work from the romantic period often focused on nature and the inner workings of the human mind, both of which manifest as the daffodils that Wordsworth’s speaker comes across provide joy and relief amidst melancholic musings.

Further Literary Resources

“On the Rhyme Scheme of Robert Herrick’s TO DAFFODILS by Jason Denman (2012)

Denman points out the unique rhyme scheme and meter Herrick employs in “To Daffodils” and explicates how these poetic conventions combine to supplement the “poem’s anxious sense that time offers two forms of gratification: one transitory and one deferred.” The couplet placement and separated rhymes are of special interest to Denman’s close reading of Herrick’s work.

“You May For Ever Tarry”: Herrick’s Endings by Diana Wise (2020)

Wise focuses her essay on an analysis of the concluding lines of Herrick’s poems, crowning him “master of the neat ending.” The compact couplets and singsong rhyme schemes produce a greater effect for the reading audience. Wise’s look at the “piecemeal breed of endings that are hardly endings” provides another perspective on the structure of Herrick’s poetry.

"The divinity of flowers: Andrew McCulloch analyses Robert Herrick’s ‘To Daffodils’ in its historical and literary context" by Andrew McCulloch (Spring 2008)

McCulloch views Herrick’s poem as a text existing in the lineage of pastoral poems. Acknowledging how “[p]astoral, then, is a very useful literary device, a way of dramatising [sic] social, political, or religious conflict,” McCulloch analyzes the Christian messages in Herrick’s text, highlighting the balance Herrick maintains between “the fact of death” and the “possibility of redemption.”