To The Daisy

IN youth from rock to rock I went
From hill to hill in discontent
Of pleasure high and turbulent,
       Most pleased when most uneasy;
But now my own delights I make,---
Thirst at every rill can slake,
And gladly Nature's love partake,
       Of Thee, sweet Daisy!

Thee Winter in the garland wears
That thinly decks his few gray hairs;
Spring parts the clouds with softest airs,
       That she may sun 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;
Pleased at his greeting thee again;
       Yet nothing daunted,
Nor grieved if thou be set at nought:
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 choose;
Proud be the rose, with rains and dew
       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 rain he fly,
Or, some bright day of April sky,
Imprisoned 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 care
       His melancholy.

A hundred times, by rock or bower,
Ere thus I have lain couched 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;
       Of 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.

Fresh-smitten by the morning ray,
When thou art up, alert and gay,
Then, cheerful Flower! my spirits play
       With kindred gladness:
And when, at dusk, by dews opprest
Thou sink'st, the image of thy rest
Hath often eased my pensive breast
       Of careful sadness.

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.

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;
Nor be less dear to future men
Than in old time;---thou not in vain
       Art Nature's favourite.