74 
PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
Pass into nothingness. 
.In spite of all 
Some shape of beauty moves away the pale 
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, 
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon 
For simple sheep ; and such are Daffodils 
With the green world they live in.” 
Shelley is still warmer in his praise— 
“ Narcissus, the fairest among them all, 
Who gaze on their eyes in the stream’s recess, 
Till they die of their own dear loveliness.” 
The Sensitive Plant , p. I. 
Nor must Wordsworth be left out when speaking of the poetry 
of Daffodils. His stanzas are well known, while his sister’s 
prose description of them is the most poetical of all: “ They 
grew among the mossy stones; . . . some rested their heads 
on these stones as on a pillow, the rest tossed and reeled and 
danced, and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind, 
they looked so gay and glancing.” 1 
But it is time to come to prose. The Daffodil of Shake¬ 
speare is the Wild Daffodil ( Narcissus pseudo-Narcissus ) that is 
found in abundance in many parts of England. This is the 
true English Daffodil, and there is only one other species that 
is truly native—the N. biflorus , chiefly found in Devonshire. 
But long before Shakespeare’s time a vast number had been 
introduced from different parts of Europe, so that Gerard was 
1 The “ Quarterly Review,” quoting this description, says, that “ few 
poets ever lived who could have written a description so simple and original, 
so vivid and descriptive.” Yet it is an unconscious imitation of Homer’s 
account of the Narcissus— 
“ vapKKTcrSv 0 ’ . 
6av/xaarbv yavocavra’ aefias Se re Ttacriv Ideodcu 
adavarois re 6eo7s 7]de dvrjrois avdpurrois' 
rov kcu a7r b plCv s tKarbv Kapa e^eire^vitei' 
Kr]wbei r 5 oS/xr? ttus t’ ovpavbs evpvs virepQev, 
•youa. re 7ra<r* iyeAaacre, /cat b.Kfxvpbv otb/j.a 6aXdcrcrr|s. , ’ 
Hy mn to Demeter, 8—14. 
