TO THE DAISY.

In youth from rock to rock I went,
From hill to hill, in discontent
Of pleasure high and turbulent,

Most pleas'd when most uneasy;

But now my own delights I make,
My thirst at every rill can slake,
And gladly Nature's love partake
Of thee, sweet Daisy!

VOL. I.

When soothed a while by milder airs, Thee Winter in the garland wears

That thinly shades his few grey hairs; Spring cannot shun thee;

Whole summer fields are thine by right;
And Autumn, melancholy Wight!

Doth in thy crimson head delight
When rains are on thee.

In shoals and bands, a morrice train, Thou greet'st the Traveller in the lane; If welcome once thou count'st it gain; Thou art not daunted,

Nor car'st if thou be set at naught;

And oft alone in nooks remote

We meet thee, like a pleasant thought, When such are wanted.

Be Violets in their secret mews

The flowers the wanton Zephyrs chuse ;

Proud be the Rose, with rains and dews Her head impearling;

Thou liv'st with less ambitious aim,

Yet hast not gone without thy fame;
Thou art indeed by many a claim
The Poet's darling.

If to a rock from rains he fly,

Or, some bright day of April sky,
Imprison'd by hot sunshine lie

Near the green holly,

And wearily at length should fare;
He need but look about, and there

Thou art a Friend at hand, to scare

His melancholy.

A hundred times, by rock or bower,
Ere thus I have lain couch'd an hour,
Have I derived from thy sweet power
Some apprehension;

Some steady love; some brief delight;
Some memory that had taken flight;
Some chime of fancy wrong or right;
Or stray invention.

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.

When, smitten by the morning ray,
I see thee rise alert and gay,

Then, chearful Flower! my spirits play
With kindred motion:

At dusk, I've seldom mark'd thee press
The ground, as if in thankfulness
Without some feeling, more or less,
Of true devotion.

And all day long I number yet,
All seasons through another debt,
Which I wherever thou art met,

To thee am owing;

An instinct call it, a blind sense;

A happy, genial influence,

Coming one knows not how nor whence, Nor whither going.

T