DAFFODILS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 21, 17 September 1912, Page 7

DAFFODILS.

o | (Bj Ascot A. Broad in the Dunedin Star.) There they stand, an army of the beautiful, nodding their graceful heads in the breeze, which, no longer blowing with the tartness of winter, proclaims in its balminess the coming of spring. Many-pointed golden stars, each with a trumpet borne upon its heart; what is the message of the daffodils? They stand on their earthly, brown bed, and challenge all with their heavenly, saffron beauty. What is the secret of the bulb, buried in the soil, springing to such radiance of lowliness? The man of science passes, and he reads that secret not otherwise than in the open mystery of life. He declares that the daffodil, in its wondrous growth, but obeys the universal laws of nature. So saying, he speaks well; for ho speaks truly of what science exactly beholds. But when science has said with clear precision all she has got to say, still the flowers maintain their unanswerable challenge, the daffodils persist: “Read our riddle!” It is just because this riddle cannot be read that the yellow blossoms, with all their lovely flowers, will ever appeal not merely to the sense of beauty in the beholder, but likewise to his sense of wonder. This is why a daffodil can make the wise man as a child; this is why a child so readily loves a daffodil. The question remains as to possession ; whether the man of wisdom must understand before he can enjoy it. The child never thinks even, but plucks, yet the child is the wiser. In a garden of daffodils, then, it is the wise who can make themselves truly childlike who will best enjoy themselves. Surely here is legitimate field for the play of that imaginative force, which, always present in the child, is apt all too frequently to be allowed to lie dormant, if not indeed to die, when the child, grown to youth or manhood, has to face for himself the hard facts of life. It is not without reason that imagination has been termed the noblest faculty of the mind of man. The student of art, of social or political economy, or of history generally, knows where to place it as a creative force in the way of progress; but it will suffice the purposes of this article if it may he shown that the daffodils, in their striking beauty, make a strong appeal to the same authority. Men do not refuse to believe in the existence of the stars, although they may not touch the heavenly bodies with their fingers; and so contrariwise, although the star-shaped flowers may be culled by the hand, this does not render the wonder of their beauty a whit the less wonderful. How easily the long green, tapering stem of the daffodil, may be cut ; yet the minutest examination of its section reveals nought of the glorious planning and wondrous colouring of the flower. What is the music of a daffodil trumpet, or why is that feature of the blossom so shaped as to suggest a flare of sound? Is it to declare that sound and sight are closely related; that to have the one is to hold the other? Then what is the significance of the colour of daffodils? To-day they are generally decked in multihued tints of canary yellow, new or old gold as to petals, with trumpets to match, or in daring contrast, rival shades being often flung into harmony by a blaze of neutral but striking colour running around the trumpet mouth. Science steps in here very helpfully to tell that sound and colour are but a matter of vibration; that even the chromatic scale finds its counterpart in beautiful rainbow like colouring, when its pulsations are correlatively intensified. In daffodil culture man has stepped in daringly to assist, if not to improve, upon nature. 'As consequence there are freaks in form as well as in colour to be found among the blooms; but if a man would learn the message of the daffodil, let him behold the ordinary type of this particular flower. Let him look intently on the radiating petals of yellow or old gold, on the saffron-

tinted trumpet springing, set all silent, from the very heart of the flower; then let him listen. What is the music of that trumpet? What is the clarion call ringing from the heart of the golden petals ?

But who dare translate even such music as this into words? The music of the daffodil is as that of the spheres, silent, yet thrilling with harmony. Music has been claimed as the highest of the arts, simply because it makes of them all the highest claim upon the imagination. But as surely as it may he inarticulate as to mere words, so surely does it create an atmosphere for expression. It pacifies, it excites, it restrains, it exhorts. Knowing this, one docs not wonder that men of intensity of life, men who have dared and suffered and done, have in manifold ways and at divers times gained inspiration from music. To every man there comes the ministry of suffering and the call to action and so for all who may behold or handle it the daffodil has its message: First, it declares life is a golden thing. It opens to the light, turning sun to sun; hut when the great orb of the day hides behind some cloud it never changes its colour. When the sun cannot he seen the daffodil yet remains sun-gold. It has the faith which waits for the passing of the cloud, and so testifies for consistency. Also, it speaks of fortitude. Look at the daffodils after they have been wind and rain swept by the storm ! Rome are broken in stem, some have been buffeted of half their bloom, some hang drooping, others are sadly hegraddled and shaken. But, the tempest over, from thinned and scattered ranks, they can greet the returning sun with cheer of victory. For through all storm and stress, and breaking, and apparent defeat, they have yet remained faithful; they have kept their sungold. This is why the daffodils after the storm seem to welcome the sun, and why, after the dripping rain shower, they seem to rejoice most in the sun-

light. The golden, star-shaped, trurapeted flowers, then, have their mission, and clearly proclaim their future message. Was there ever star which spoke not of hope and betokened not guidance? Stars of heaven find their reflex on earth in the daffodils with faces so bravely upturned to their sky. Many an earth’s mortal, weary and sick at heart, has looked above to the starry heights to gain inspiration, to recover bis courage and patience from their clear shining, and lo! at bis feet, all glorious in the .daylight, if he cannot lift bis eyes in the dark, he finds the stars, with their like message, in the daffodils! Golden stars of hope, they are heralding, trumpeting the spring! That the daffodils carry their trumpets on their hearts is most significant. It means that their message is more to them than themselves; that they live to declare it. It means that while they fade, as must every flower, their message lives on, trumpeted through time unto eternity, to call them into being again. For they are nothing if not part and parcel of the spring, although they come at its very dawning. And when shall come round the last spring-tide? Of this the daffodils do not concern. It is theirs but to trumpet forth their silent but eloquent message of hope. Yet the everincreasing lustre of colour, the overgrowing grace of form and radiancy of beauty, wherewith they greet the opening of each recurring year, all speak of a coining glory beyond human conception, and enkindle within the human heart a hope, more than World-wide of an eternal spring.