Zbc fraarant l^ote »ook 



eagerly pushing up their tender green leaves and claiming 

 by their courage the attention which even a bolder flare of 

 colour might not command. Intimately must Perdita, 

 king's daughter though she were, have known her southern 

 garden to have talked of buds and blossoms so feelingly 

 with Camilio, picking out, as well a princess might, the ^ 



"Daffodils >>^] 



That come before the swallow dares, and ^\ ] 

 Take the winds of March with beauty." \ y 



But let us be introspective. What, in truth, have we 

 here, — a dajffodil, such as we speak of today, or a daffodilly, 

 such as our gran'thers knew, or the sweet daffidowndilly of 

 which Spenser wrote in his Faerie Queen ? Why, in truth to 

 answer, we have, forsooth, them all, and all as old as old 

 Homer, whose "asphodel " we of later date have made over 

 and taken for our own under this slightly varied name, varied 

 perhaps to correspond with the variance in species. But the 

 rose by any other name's as sweet, and how then shall 

 "asphodel" bloom less the yellow because we call it "daffo- 

 dil" or be to us less the dear because we see and love it in 

 the spring, — the hour of life and living, — ^instead of growing 

 wild and rank amongst the classic tombs of Homer's dead? 

 To us with the daffodil comes naturally the picture of snows j 

 just melting, life just starting, buds just parting, with flowers 

 and bowers and birds and sun! And how easy with this 

 picture it is to see 



^y. 



