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. 1.

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."[76:1]

But it is time to come to prose. The Daffodil of Shakespeare 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
able to describe twenty-four different species, and had "them all and
every of them in our London gardens in great abundance." The family, as
at present arranged by Mr. J. G. Baker, of the Kew Herbarium, consists
of twenty-one species, with several sub-species and varieties; all of
which should be grown. They are all, with the exception of the Algerian
species, which almost defy cultivation in England, most easy of
cultivation--"Magna cura non indigent Narcissi." They only require after
the first planting to be let alone, and then they will give us their
graceful flowers in varied beauty from February to May. The first will
usually be the grand N. maximus, which may be called the King of
Daffodils, though some authors have given to it a still more illustrious
name. The "Rose of Sharon" was the large yellow Narcissus, common in
Palestine and the East generally, of which Mahomet said: "He that has
two cakes of bread, let him sell one of them for some flower of the
Narcissus, for bread is the food of the body, but Narcissus is the food
of the soul." From these grand leaders of the tribe we shall be