18 



MR HARDY ON BUTTERCUPS AND DAISIES. 



without a peer, the type, as it were, in which all the superior proper- 

 ties of the other species are blended, giving occasion to the common 

 proverb as applicable to any thing particularly excelling, " That cowes, 

 or keels, the gowan." In some districts we have this dignity some- 

 what curtailed by the application of additional epithets. Hogg some- 

 where speaks of •* some bit waefu' love story, enough to make the 

 pinks (fiardamine pratensis) an' the ewe-gowans blush to the very 

 lips ;"* and some nameless bard, in yearning for green pastures, has 

 also sung of ** the bonny ewe-gowans that shed their sweets around."| 

 As the *• May gowan," J this plant is associated with one of the most 

 delightful periods of the year, and deservedly so, for then the daisy, 

 with a robe of purity, begins to invest the fresh green fields with a 

 galaxy, that rivals in intensity and in beauty, the clustered host of stars 

 that girdle the midnight heavens. As appearing in this month, it has, 

 in the popular mind, become linked with the salubrious influences which 

 the pure and balmy air, and the ** vernal spirit" diffused and quicken- 

 ing in all animate existences, are estimated to impart to the infirm and 

 the sick 



.'* who long have tossed 



On the thorny bed of pain." 



The languid pulse is enlivened, the feverish brow freshened, the wasted 

 frame invigorated, and the flickering flame of life re-illumed, as the in- 

 valid, half assured of convalescence, again treads the verdant carpet, in 

 which the daisy is interwoven — a woof .of unsullied purity. *•' It is a 

 happiness but to breathe and move ; and not every limb merely, but 

 almost every fibre of every limb has its separate sense of enjoyment." § 

 And relatives and friends who experience *' those ties which bind our 

 race in gentleness together," now that spring and its train of promised 

 blessings have once more revisited the plain, with the fears and anxie- 

 ties of many a watchful night allayed, feel, at its approach, as if the oft 

 reiterated hope were almost already realized ; that when once again the 

 object of their solicitude had trod the fresh May gowan, the vital 

 powers of nature would refit the frail tabernacle, and all would yet bo 



* Tales by the Ettrick Shepherd. 



t In Tail's Edinburgh Magazine. 



X The " mary-gowlon" — the common name of this plant in the vicinity of 

 Wooler, is perhaps a conupt substitution for may-gowan. 



8 Dr Thomas BroNvn, Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind, 

 sect. 17. 



