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and first one well preserved from old Chaucer:

The Daisie, a flowre white and rede,
And in French called La bel Marguerete,
O commendable flowre and most in minde,

Above all flowres in the mede,

Than love I most those flowres white and rede,
Such that they callen Daisies in our town.

And now, dewy and fresh from the hand of a young poet:

THE DAISY.

A gold and silver cup
Upon a pillar green,

Earth holds her Daisy up

To catch the sunshine in:

A dial chaste, set there

To show each radiant hour:

A field-astronomer;

A sun-observing flower.

The children with delight
To meet the Daisy run;
They love to see how bright
She shines upon the sun:
Like lowly white-crowned queen,
Demurely doth she bend,
And stands, with quiet mien,

The little children's friend.

Out in the field she's seen,
A simple rustic maid,
In comely gown of green,

And clean white frill arrayed;
There stands, like one in mood
Of hope by fancy spun,
Awaiting to be woo'd,,
Awaiting to be won.

The dandy Butterfly,
All exquisitely drest,
Before the Daisy's eye
Displays his velvet vest:
In vain is he arrayed

In all that gaudy show;
What business hath a maid
With such a foppish beau?

THE DAISY.

The vagrant Bee but sings
For what he gets thereby;
Nor comes, except he brings
His pocket on his thigh;
Then let him start aside

And woo some wealthier flower;
The Daisy's not his bride,
She hath no honey-dower.

The Gnat, old back-bent fellow,
In frugal frieze coat drest,
Seeks on her carpet yellow
His tottering limbs to rest;
He woos her with eyes dim,
Voice thin, and aspect sage;
What careth she for him?
What part hath youth with age?

She lifteth up her cup,
She gazeth on the sky;
Content, so looking up,

Whether to live or die;
Content, in wind and cold

To stand, in shine and shower;

A white-rayed marigold,

A golden-bosomed flower.

It is a pleasant croft

Where "winged kine" may graze;
A golden meadow soft,

Quadrille-ground for young fays;

A little yellow plot,

With clean white pales fenced round,

Each tipt with vermeil spot,

Each set on greenest ground.

HENRY SUTTON.

99

Nor must we omit two others which may justly be termed perennial.

TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY,

ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH IN APRIL, 1786.

Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r,
Thou's met me in an evil hour;
For I maun crush among the stoure

Thy slender stem;

To spare thee now is past my pow'r,

Thou bonnie gem.

Alas! its no thy neebor sweet,
The bonnie lark, companion meet!
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet,
Wi' speckled breast,

When upward-springing, blythe, to greet
The purpling east,

Cauld blew the bitter-biting north
Upon thy early, humble, birth;
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
Amid the storm,

Scarce reared above the parent earth
Thy tender form,

The flaunting flowers our gardens yield,
High sheltering woods and wa's maun shield;
But thou beneath the random bield

O' clod or stane,

Adorns the lintie stibble field,

Unseen, alane.

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THE DAISY.

But this small flower, to nature dear,
While moons and stars their courses run,
Enwreathes the circle of the year,
Companion of the sun.

It smiles upon the lap of May,
To sultry August spreads its charm,
Lights pale October on his way,
And twines December's arm.

The purple heath and golden broom,
On moory mountains catch the gale,
O'er lawns the lily sheds perfume,
The violet in the vale.

But this bold floweret climbs the hill,
Hides in the forest, haunts the glen,
Plays on the margin of the rill
Peeps round the fox's den.

Within the garden's cultured round
It shares the sweet carnation's bed;
And blooms on consecrated ground
In honour of the dead.

The lambkin crops its crimson gem,
The wild-bee murmurs on its breast,
The blue-fly bends its pensile stem,
Light o'er the sky-lark's nest.
'Tis Flora's page-in every place,
In every season fresh and fair;
It opens with perennial grace,
And blossoms everywhere.

On waste and woodland, rock and plain,
Its humble buds unheeded rise;
The rose has but a summer-reign;
The Daisy never dies.

MONTGOMERY.

101

"Take (says Rousseau) one of those little flowers which cover all the pastures, and which everybody knows by the name of daisy. Look at it well; for I am sure you would not have guessed, by its appearance, that this flower, which is so small and delicate, is really composed of between two and three hundred flowers, all of them perfect; that is, having each its corolla, stamens, pistil, and fruit. Every one of those leaves which are white above and red underneath, and form a kind of crown round the flower, appearing to be nothing more than little petals, are in reality so many true flowers; and every one of those tiny yellow things

also, which you see in the centre, and which at first you have, perhaps, taken for nothing but stamens, are real flowers. If you were accustomed to botanical dissections and were armed with a good glass, and plenty of patience, it would be easy to convince you of this. But you may at least pull out one of the white leaves from the flower: you will at first think that it is flat from one end to the other; but look carefully at the end by which it was fastened to the flower, and you will see that this end is not flat, but round and hollow, in form of a tube, and that a little thread, ending in two horns, issues from the tube; this thread is the forked style of the flower, which, as you now see, is flat only at the top.

Next look at those yellow things in the middle of the flower, and which as I have told you are all so many flowers; if the flower be sufficiently advanced, you will see several of them open in the middle, and even cut into several parts. These are monopetalous corollas, which expand; and a glass will easily discover in them the pistil, and even the anthers with which it is surrounded. Commonly the yellow florets towards the centre are still rounded and closed. These, however, are flowers like the others, but not yet open; for they expand successively from the edge inwards. This is enough to show you by the eye, the possibility that all these small affairs, both white and yellow, may be so many distinct flowers; and this is a constant fact. You perceive, nevertheless, that all these little flowers are pressed, and enclosed in a calyx which is common to them all, and which is that of the daisy. In considering then the whole daisy as one flower, we give it a very significant name when we call it a composite flower."

Lastly, we have

DAISIES FOR THE DEAD.

Peeps not a snow-drop in the bower,
Where never froze the spring?

A Daisy oh! bring childhood's flower,
The half-blown daisy bring!

Yes, lay the daisy's little head,
Beside the little cheek;

Oh haste the last of five is dead!
The childless cannot speak!

ELLIOTT.

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