To Blossoms

 

 

                                              To Blossoms

 

            ‘To Blossoms’ is a very beautiful and one of the best-loved poems by the Cavalier poet Robert Herrick (1591-1674), who was a perfect lyricist though his greatness was acknowledged after a long waiting.

 

            A criic says Herrick’s poems achieved no great contemporary fame, and he had to wait till the end of the eighteenth century before he took his rightful place in the greatest English lyric poets. From that place there has been none to depose him.    

 

            Given below is his deeply meaningful poem To Blossoms. It is about the fleeting beauty of blossoms which are “born to be an hour or half’s delight’. It is sad, says the poet, all beautiful things also have quick end. They merely show their worth and quit this world.

 

             Their brief life  reveals to us  the universal truth and that is: “How soon things have their end. After they have shown their pride awhile, they glide into the grave.”

               

            The full text of the poem bearing the title “TO BLOSSOMS” follows.    

 

“Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,

Why do ye fall so fast?

Your date is not so past,

But you may stay yet here a-while,

To blush and gently smile;

And go at last.

 

What, were ye born to be

An hour or half's delight;

And so to bid good-night?

'Twas pity Nature brought ye forth,

Merely to show your worth,

And lose you quite.

 

But you are lovely leaves, where we

May read how soon things have

Their end, though ne'er so brave:

And after they have shown their pride,

Like you, a-while;—they glide

Into the grave. “

 

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G.R.Kanwal

1^st October 2026