a house lit up.

April 18, 2011
daffodils, basket

daffodils, sewing table

daffodils, dirty
i wrote my own daffodil story last year. this year, an excerpt from someone else. it reads rather nicely aloud, if you’re in the spirit:

Yes, a favourite flower must be a spring flower–there is no doubt about that. You have your choice, then, of the daffodil, the violet, the primrose, and the crocus. The bluebell comes too late, the cowslip is but an indifferent primrose; camelias and anemones and all the others which occur to you come into a different class. Well, then, will you choose the violet or the crocus? 

…My favourite flower must adorn my house; to show itself off to the best advantage within doors it must have a long stalk. A crocus, least of all, is a flower to be plucked. I admit its charm as the first hint of spring that is vouchsafed to us in the parks, but I want it nearer home than that. You cannot pick a crocus and put it in water; nor can you be so cruel as to spoil the primrose and the violet by taking them from their natural setting; but the daffodil cries aloud to be picked. It is what it is waiting for.


…Other flowers must have foliage to set them off, but daffodils can stand by themselves in a bowl, and their green and yellow dress brings all spring into the room. A house with daffodils in it is a house lit up, whether or no the sun be shining outside. Daffodils in a green bowl–and let it snow if it will.

from “daffodils,” by a.a. milne.

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11 Comments

  • Reply Sophie April 18, 2011 at 11:44 am

    so gorgeous! daffodils have to be my favourite spring flower! xx

  • Reply Jane Flanagan April 18, 2011 at 12:43 pm

    Lovely!!

  • Reply ChinkyGirLMeL April 18, 2011 at 1:28 pm

    oh wow, i super love the photos. I heart these yellow flowers, what a breath of sunshine!

  • Reply sophiedaisy April 18, 2011 at 2:36 pm

    These pictures are lovely! I love your blog i have just started one any tips?

  • Reply Steve April 18, 2011 at 6:57 pm

    I pass by a little "Daffodils $5" sign outside a home on my way to/from URI here, maybe I'll stop and make somebody's day one of these times.

  • Reply melissa April 18, 2011 at 9:01 pm

    So beautiful! So appropriate for Spring! xo

  • Reply Erin April 18, 2011 at 9:07 pm

    @Steve, you definitely should!

  • Reply Kayla Poole April 19, 2011 at 12:17 am

    Oh this is so very true. A house lit up indeed!

  • Reply Julia April 19, 2011 at 12:31 am

    The story just trips happily along, like a happy little girl in new shoes looking at the splendor around her. Brilliant!

  • Reply Mo Pie, Please April 19, 2011 at 1:37 am

    So pretty! We had tulips this past week, coral tulips. They truly made me smile every time I looked at them. Some on our dining room table, some on my nightstand. Ah, freshness! I have to go to the store tomorrow so I think I'll pick up some daffodils to brighten our apartment this week!

  • Reply Doe April 19, 2011 at 12:03 pm

    You'll like this one, too, by May Swenson:

    Yellow telephones
    in a row in the garden
    are ringing,
    shrill with light.

    Old-fashioned spring
    brings earliest models out
    each April the same,
    naïve and classical.

    Look into the yolk-
    colored mouthpieces
    alert with echoes.
    Say hello to time.

    from Nature: Poems Old and New. © Houghton Mifflin, 2000

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