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!