VII. TO THE DAISY. "Her* divine skill taught me this, I could some instruction draw, G. WITHER. IN youth from rock to rock I went, Most pleased when most uneasy; Thee Winter in the garland wears * His Muse. Spring parts the clouds with softest airs, Whole Summer-fields are thine by right; In shoals and bands, a morrice train, Nor grieved, if thou be set at naught : We meet thee, like a pleasant thought, Be violets in their sacred mews The flowers the wanton Zephyrs choose; Thou liv'st with less ambitious aim, Yet hast not gone without thy fame; If to a rock from rains he fly, And wearily at length should fare; He needs but look about, and there Thou art! a friend at hand, to scare His melancholy. A hundred times, by rock or bower, Some steady love; some brief delight; If stately passions in me burn, And one chance look to thee should turn, I drink out of an humbler urn A lowlier pleasure; The homely sympathy that heeds The common life, our nature breeds ; A wisdom fitted to the needs Of hearts at leisure. Fresh-smitten by the morning ray, With kindred gladness: And when, at dusk, by dews opprest Thou sink'st, the image of thy rest Hath often eased my pensive breast And all day long I number yet, An instinct call it, a blind sense; Coming one knows not how, nor whence, Child of the Year! that round dost run Thy pleasant course, when day's begun As ready to salute the sun As lark or leveret, Thy long-lost praise thou shalt regain ; Than in old time; - thou not in vain Art Nature's favorite.* 1802. *See, in Chaucer and the elder Poets, the honors for merly paid to this flower. VIII. TO THE SAME FLOWER. WITH little here to do or see Of things that in the great world be, Thou unassuming Commonplace Oft on the dappled turf at ease Loose types of things through all degrees, And many a fond and idle name I give to thee, for praise or blame, A nun demure, of lowly port; Or sprightly maiden, of Love's court, Of all temptations; A queen in crown of rubies drest; A starveling in a scanty vest; Thy appellations. |