THE WORK OF FLOWERS 127 



the living seed has its own Httle private store, packed 

 neatly inside its hard outer coat. 



Sometimes the stock of food is in the " cotyledons," 

 and usually it is folded close about the tiny beginning of 

 life in the seed. Either way it is at hand, ready for use, 

 so soon as it may be wanted. 



" Fair Daffodils, we weep to see 

 You haste away so soon; 

 As yet the early rising sun 



Has not attained his noon. 



Stay, stay, 

 Until the hasting day 



Has run 

 But to the Evensong; 

 And having prayed together, we 

 Will go with you along. 



" We have short time to stay as you. 

 We have as short a spring, 

 As quick a breath to meet decay 

 As you or any thing; 



We die 

 As your hours do, and dry 



Away, 

 Like to the summer's rain, 

 Or as the pearls of morning dew 

 Ne'er to be found again." ^ 



V — Making Ready for Summer 



Even in the cold dark days of winter, when growth 

 is more or less at a standstill, when the plant is in a kind 

 of chrysalis state, when nothing seems doing, even then 

 we must not suppose that the seed is perfectly idle. 



Inside that hard outer coat, preparation is going on. 

 Through the winter months the seed is living, breathing, 

 1 Robert Herrick (about a.d. 1600). 



