What is a summary of the poem 'Daffodils' by Ted Hughes?

Answer 1

Daffodils is from the collection Birthday Letters: a long sequence of poems which Ted Hughes wrote about his first wife - the American poet Sylvia Plath who committed suicide in 1963. (Hughes would not allow the book to be published until after his own death).

In Daffodils, Hughes remembers how he and Sylvia used to pick daffodils each spring, and then sell them to a local florist. He recalls particularly the daffodils they picked together during the last spring before his wife's suicide.

Hughes contemplates how we never value the precious things we have while we are young (the daffodils). We assume that there will always be good times, so we let our good times go easily (sell the daffodils to the local florist), since we believe there will always be more joy to come.

But there is no guarantee of good times to come; Hughes is writing the poem in memory of his dead wife.

At the end of the poem Hughes remembers the scissors which the young lovers used to cut the daffodils, before tying them into sheaves for sale. The scissors was a wedding present, but during that last year they lost it.

Hughes imagines the scissors dropped on the ground many years ago, now rusting away somewhere. He imagines it as an anchor, or a cross.

It is an anchor, because it ties him to his misery; a cross because it is the burden he will always have to bear.

Answer 2

"Daffodils" by Ted Hughes describes the speaker's encounter with a field of daffodils. The poem explores the beauty and vibrancy of nature as well as the speaker's emotional response to the sight of the daffodils. It emphasizes the transformative power of nature and the connection between humans and the natural world.