To Daffodils

The messages in “To Daffodils” can be traced back to Robert Herrick’s training and career as a vicar in the Church of England. With references to prayer and salvation, “To Daffodils” features clear allusions to Christianity. Herrick took Holy Orders in 1623 before being ordained as the vicar of Dean Prior in 1629.

These Christian allusions, however, aren’t the only aspect of Herrick’s life reflected in this particular poem. The poem was published in Hesperides; or, the Works Both Humane and Divine of Robert Herrick, Esq. in 1648, after Herrick had been removed from his vicarage for exhibiting Royalist sympathies during the English Civil War. Herrick held his position of Dean Prior for 31 years—a position which he had held for so long, which provided such stability—before being removed. The loss of his position parallels the ephemerality of life and nature the speaker discusses in Herrick’s poem. “To Daffodils” could be read as Herrick’s reflection on his situation, as his coping with and reasoning how something he so dearly valued could be snatched away. The transience in his own life is the same transience expressed in “to Daffodils.” Though Herrick wasn’t reinstated as vicar until 1662 and wouldn’t have known at the time Hesperides was published that he would regain this clerical post, it could be said that the redemption hinted at in “To Daffodils” manifested in Herrick’s life. Just as there is the hope in Herrick’s poem that the sun will rise again, that another summer storm will come, that the dew will return in the morning and that prayer can ease the transition between life and death, Herrick received his own form of salvation when he was once more positioned as the leader of his parish.