To Daffodils

The main message of Herrick’s speaker in “To Daffodils” is that things change. Time moves forward, waiting for nothing and no one. If there is a constant on which one can depend, it is that time always marches onward, aging objects and altering the landscape as it goes. All things eventually die and come to an end; thus, if time is a constant, so is death.

Herrick’s poem is a description of mortality. In order to relay this message of ephemerality, he uses symbolism to highlight the waxing and waning of life. The “early-rising sun” (Line 3) gives way to “noon” (Line 4) as “day” (Line 6) gives way to “even-song” (Line 8). “Spring” (Line 12) eventually moves from “growth” (Line 13) to “decay” (Line 13). The “summer’s rain” (Line 18) and “morning’s dew” (Line 19) both eventually dry up and evaporate. The eponymous daffodils will eventually “die” (Line 15). Because everything in life changes and vanishes, there doesn’t seem to be anything permanent in the physical world upon which the reading audience can rely. Herrick ends his poem with the disappearance of the morning dew, rather than with a hopeful message to his readers about the passage of time.