Ignoring Daffodils

"Most people ignore poetry because most poetry ignores most people." Adrian Mitchell

At the top of the Tor yesterday, just after I took yesterday's blip, I saw a young guy wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the above quote, which got me thinking:

Firstly, why couldn't I bring myself to strike up a conversation with this stranger whose clothes suggested that we had at least one interest in common, and ask if he'd mind having his photo taken? I still seem to lack the nerve? confidence? that earthdreamery and others show and that brings them and us into contact with such interesting characters.

Secondly, how true was that quote that these days? As Mitchell said in a later interview (which you can read in full, if you're interested, by clicking the link on the quote above), I don't think it is any more, even if it ever was. The problem is more to do with the perception that some people have about poetry, often based on the way it has been presented to them. The best poetry has always had something to say that most people can relate to.

Which brings me to this poem, by Robert Herrick a few centuries ago, but still talks simply and eloquently (to me, at least, and more as time moves on) about the importance of enjoying the beauties of life while you can:

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 even-song;
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