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The Cambridge Book of Poetry for Children

by Kenneth Grahame

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Daffodils

          ... Daffodils
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty.

Shakespeare.

To Daffodils

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 evensong;
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.

Robert Herrick.

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