Winter Daffodils
How bittersweet it was, the other day, to see two daffodils in fullest bloom in January. Dear things, you’ve come too soon. The winter world is cruel. How can you stay when ice and wind return, as surely they will do before the month is out? Oh, the world’s womb is where you should be still. No cold can ruin you there. Awaiting spring, you’d be quite safe. But since you’ve sprung (you young and fragile things), what can I do but pray that tender hands will find you one day, that perhaps a tree will shelter you from winter’s worst, that spring will quicky come so that the freezing land is nothing but a distant memory?