The most famous flowers in poetry must surely be William Wordsworth’s daffodils, expressing the surprise and delight of stumbling upon unexpected beauty.

And being beautiful is something that daffodils just can’t help… In this mini anthology we encounter a whole host of varieties, from “dainty white dancers” to “saffron flouncers”. Over and again the poems celebrate the flower’s gloriously jaunty yellow-ness, which seems to spell hope at a time when spring has barely got going – sometimes even in mid-winter:

“They wait for me
holding out the sun like a gold watch
against the shortest day…”

from ‘Winter Daffodils’ by Phoebe Hesketh

The poems are guaranteed to gladden the heart, encouraging us to pay attention to the everyday splendour of this much-loved herald of spring.