Monday 9 March 2015

Day 964: Daffy-Down-Dilly

 
  
It's daffodil time again! Everywhere their bright yellow heads are popping up, happy harbingers of spring. This amiable nursery rhyme poem (which has been attributed to Mother Goose) captures the heady cheeriness of the daffodil like no other I think. Enjoy!
 

Daffy Down Dilly

Daffy-down-dilly
Is new come to town, 
With a petticoat green, 
And a bright yellow gown, 
And her little white blossoms 
Are peeping around.

Now don't you call this 
A most exquisite thing? 
Don't it give you a thrill 
With the thought of the spring, 
Such as once, in your childhood, 
You felt, when you found 
The first yellow buttercups 
Spangling the ground? 

When the lilac was fresh
With its glory of leaves, 
And the swallows came fluttering 
Under the eaves? 
When the bluebird flashed by 
like a magical thing, 
And you looked for a fairy
Astride of his wing?
 
When the clear, running water,
Like tinkling of bells, 
Bore along the bare roadside 
A song of the dells,— 
And the mornings were fresh 
With unfailing delight, 
While the sweet summer hush 
Always came with the night?

O daffy-down-dilly,
With robings of gold! 
As our hearts every year
To your coming unfold, 
And sweet memories stir
Through the hardening mould, 
We feel how earth's blossomings
Surely are given 
To keep the soul fresh 
For the spring-time of heaven! 

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