Daffodil. 
(UNREQUITED LOVE.) 
^PHE yellow-coloured species of the Narcissus is generally 
X known as the Daffodil, and by this cognomen the beau¬ 
teous flower is more frequently addressed by the poets. By the 
early writers it was regarded as a member of the lily family, 
and it has even been conjectured that its name is nothing but 
a corruption of Dis’s lily, as it is supposed to be the flower 
that dropped from Pluto’s chariot when he was carrying off 
Proserpine to the infernal regions. Jean Ingelow, in the beau¬ 
tiful poem of “ Persephone,” thus introduces this flower into a 
resuscitation of the antique fable : 
“ She stepped upon Sicilian grass, 
Demeter’s daughter fresh and fair, 
A child of light, a radiant lass, 
And gamesome as the morning air. 
The daffodils were fair to see, 
They nodded lightly on the lea. 
***** 
“ Lo ! one she marked of rarer growth 
Than orchis or anemone; 
For it the maiden left them both, 
And parted from her company. 
Drawn nigh, she deemed it fairer still, 
And stooped to gather by the rill 
The daffodil, the daffodil. 
“ What ailed the meadow that it shook? 
What ailed the air of Sicily ? 
She wondered by the brattling brook, 
And trembled with the trembling lea. 
‘ The coal-black horses rise—they rise: 
O mother, mother!’ low she cries. 
***** 
“ ‘ O light, light!’ she cries, ‘farewell; 
The coal-black horses wait for me. 
O shade of shades, where I must dwell. 
Demeter, mother, far from thee! 
Oh, fated doom that I fulfil! 
Oh, fateful flower beside the rill! 
The daffodil, the daffodil! ’ ” 
Chaucer, the fountain-head of English poetry, alludes to this 
story in his quaint old language, and Shakspeare, who had a 
loving word for all things lovely, introduces it into his “Winter’s 
Tale,” in this exquisite manner: 
“ O Proserpina, 
For the flowers now that, frighted, thou lett’st fall 
From Dis’s wagon: daffodils 
That come before the swallow dares, and take 
The winds of March with beauty.” 
