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All in Good Faith
To Daffodils
Fair daffodils, we weep to see You haste away so soon; As yet the early rising sun
5rygg
Has not attained his noon. Stay, stay, Until the hasting day Has run But to the evensong; And having pray'd together, we Will go with you along.
We have short time to stay, as you, We have as short a spring; As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or anything.
We die,
As your hours do, and dry Away,
Like to the summer's rain;
Or as the pearl's of morning's dew,
Ne'er to be found again.
This poem was used during a course I undertook at Westminster College, Oxford, named 'The Culture of Flowers'. I feel it can be interpreted to explain exactly what we want to show in the symbolism of the flowers in this service. It identifies our short lives with that of the daffodils, as they die, we die. This reminds us that we are all part of nature, and all part of the same world. For myself it carries a deep ecological message; we need to shift our attitude from one that looks upon the natural world as separate and inferior, to one which sees everything around ourselves as special, and as such essential to our very being.
We need to realise that our actions have an effect on the world around us, if we continue to rape the world, it will eventually cease to be. The Earth's resources are not unlimited - so it is important to recognise that everything we do has an impact. These sentiments have been expressed through the ages. Over a hundred years ago Chief Seattle uttered these profound words of wisdom:
This we know
The Earth does not belong to man;
This we know
All things are connected
like the blood which unites one family.
All things are connected.
Whatever befalls the Earth
befalls the sons of the Earth.
Man did not weave the web of life,
he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. (11)
Parallax Press.
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