LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,139)
  • Text Authors (19,558)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,114)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

by Robert Herrick (1591 - 1674)

Fair daffodils, we weep to see
Language: English 
Our translations:  CAT CHI DUT FIN GER
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]1 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,]2 and dry
Away,
Like to the summer's rain,
Or as the pearls of morning's dew,
Ne'er to be found again.

Available sung texts:   ← What is this?

•   H. Darke •   E. Farrar 

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)
1 omitted by Darke.
2 omitted by Farrar.

Text Authorship:

  • by Robert Herrick (1591 - 1674), "To daffodils" [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

  • by Arnold Edward Trevor Bax, Sir (1883 - 1953), "To daffodils", 1900 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Frank Bridge (1879 - 1941), "Fair daffodils", 1905, published 1919 [ voice and piano ], revised in 1919 [sung text checked 1 time]
  • by (Edward) Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976), "To daffodils", 1950, from Five Flower Songs, no. 1 [sung text checked 1 time]
  • by Harold Edwin Darke (1888 - 1977), "To daffodils" [ chorus ] [sung text checked 1 time]
  • by Frederick Delius (1862 - 1934), "To daffodils", 1915, published 1919, first performed 1915 [ voice and piano ], from Four Old English Lyrics, no. 3 [sung text checked 1 time]
  • by Madeleine Dring (1923 - 1977), "To daffodils" [ voice and piano ], from Dedications: 5 Poems by Robert Herrick, no. 1, confirmed with a score [sung text checked 1 time]
  • by Ernest Bristow Farrar (1885 - 1918), "To daffodils" [ satb chorus ] [sung text checked 1 time]
  • by John Linton Gardner (1917 - 2011), "Fair daffodils", op. 9 (1951) [ SATB chorus a cappella ] [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Muriel Emily Herbert (1897 - 1984), "To daffodils", 1916 [ voice and piano ], confirmed with a CD booklet [sung text checked 1 time]
  • by Derek Holman (b. 1931), "Fair daffodils", 2009, first performed 2009 [ voice and piano ], from The Four Seasons, no. 4 [sung text checked 1 time]
  • by Ernest John Moeran (1894 - 1950), "To daffodils", R. 54 no. 7 (1930?), published 1933 [ chorus ], from Songs of Springtime, no. 7, Novello [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Ann Sheppard Mounsey (1811 - 1891), as Ann Sheppard Bartholomew, "Faire Daffodils", 1835 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Samuel J. Newns (1886 - 1965), "Fair daffodils", published 1944 [ SSA chorus ], from Six Part Songs for SSC, no. 4, Lovedale Press [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Humphrey Procter-Gregg (1895 - 1980), "To daffodils" [ chorus ] [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Roger Quilter (1877 - 1953), "To daffodils", published 1904 [ SATB chorus and piano ], from Two Partsongs, no. 1, London : Boosey & Hawkes [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Alan Rawsthorne (1905 - 1971), "To daffodils" [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
  • by John Theodore Livingston Raynor (1909 - 1970), "To Daffodils", op. 224 (1949) [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
  • by John Theodore Livingston Raynor (1909 - 1970), "To Daffodils", op. 487 (1957) [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Hans Uwe Strübing (b. 1956), "To daffodils", op. 81 no. 1 (2005-6) [ soprano and piano ], from Vier englische Lieder für Sopran und Klavier, no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Arthur Sullivan, Sir (1842 - 1900), "Fair Daffodils", 1857, published 1904 [ satb chorus a cappella ] [sung text checked 1 time]
  • by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 - 1958), "To Daffodils", 1895 [ voice and piano ], two versions [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Maude Valérie White (1855 - 1937), "To daffodils", published 1880 [ voice and piano ], London, Stanley Lucas, Weber & Co. [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Chee Yean Wong (b. 1979), "To Daffodils" [ voice and piano ], from Five Songs, no. 4 [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Mabel Nightingale Woodward (1876 - 1911), "Daffadils", published 1912 [ voice and piano ], from Songs, no. 10, Birmingham : Press of the Birmingham Printers; note: [sic] for the title [sung text not yet checked]

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • CAT Catalan (Català) (Salvador Pila) , copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • CHI Chinese (中文) [singable] (Dr Huaixing Wang) , copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • DUT Dutch (Nederlands) (Pauline Kroger) , "Aan de narcissen", copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • FIN Finnish (Suomi) (Erkki Pullinen) , "Narsisseille", copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (Bertram Kottmann) , "An Narzissen", copyright © 2013, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Researcher for this page: Ted Perry

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 20
Word count: 96

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris