and first one well preserved from old Chaucer: The Daisie, a flowre white and rede, Above all flowres in the mede, Than love I most those flowres white and rede, And now, dewy and fresh from the hand of a young poet: THE DAISY. A gold and silver cup 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 The little children's friend. Out in the field she's seen, And clean white frill arrayed; The dandy Butterfly, In all that gaudy show; THE DAISY. The vagrant Bee but sings And woo some wealthier flower; The Gnat, old back-bent fellow, She lifteth up her cup, Whether to live or die; To stand, in shine and shower; A white-rayed marigold, A golden-bosomed flower. It is a pleasant croft Where "winged kine" may graze; 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, Thy slender stem; To spare thee now is past my pow'r, Thou bonnie gem. Alas! its no thy neebor sweet, When upward-springing, blythe, to greet Cauld blew the bitter-biting north Scarce reared above the parent earth The flaunting flowers our gardens yield, O' clod or stane, Adorns the lintie stibble field, Unseen, alane. THE DAISY. But this small flower, to nature dear, It smiles upon the lap of May, The purple heath and golden broom, But this bold floweret climbs the hill, Within the garden's cultured round The lambkin crops its crimson gem, On waste and woodland, rock and plain, 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, A Daisy oh! bring childhood's flower, Yes, lay the daisy's little head, Oh haste the last of five is dead! ELLIOTT. |