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,—

My 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 traveler in the lane;

Pleased at his greeting thee again;

Yet nothing daunted,

Nor grieved 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 choose;

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,

Imprisoned by hot sunshine, lie

Near the green holly,

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,

Ere thus I have lain crouched 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 humble 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 favorite.