WHY FLOWERS CHANGE COLOUR — Summary

Robert Herrick’s tiny poem pretends to offer a proof: those fresh spring flowers, he says, were once young women so love-sick that they turned into blossoms. And even now, as petals, they haven’t quite escaped love’s grip. In some, colours still come and go—a flush of pink, a fade to white—as if they’re blushing or growing pale with emotion. The speaker’s tone is half-smiling, half-wistful. He treats the transformation lightly, like a charming fable, but there’s a lingering ache underneath. The flowers keep changing, just as human affections shift and flicker. The mood is delicate, fleeting, like a bloom that might drop tomorrow. Herrick doesn’t labour the point; he just lets the image hang there, pretty and a little sad.