THE DAISY. 67 



" She lifteth up her cup, 



She gazeth on the sky 

 Content, so looking up 



Whether to live or die ; 

 Content in wind and cold 



To stand, in shine or shower ; 

 A white-rayed marigold, 



A golden -bosomed flower." 



and in the lament of Elliot, is 



" Peeps not a snowdrop in the bower, 



Where never froze the spring ? 

 A daisy ! Oh, bring childhood's flower 



The half-blown daisy bring ! 

 Yes, lay the daisy's little head 



Beside the little cheek ; 

 Oh, haste the last of five is dead 



The childless cannot speak ! " 



The old Celtic belief was that each new-born 

 babe, taken away from the earth, became a spirit 

 which scattered down some new kind of flower 

 on the land it had left for the home of "just men 

 made perfect ;" and the tale is thus gracefully told : 



"The virgins of Morven, to soothe the grief of 

 Malvina, who had lost her infant son, sung to her, 

 ' we have seen Malvina, we have seen the infant 

 you regret ; reclining on a light mist, it approached 

 us, and shed on our fields a harvest of new flowers. 

 Look, Malvina! Among these flowers we dis- 

 tinguish one with a golden disk surrounded by silver 

 leaves ; a sweet tinge of crimson adorns its delicate 

 rays ; waved by a gentle wind, we might call it a little 

 infant playing in a green meadow ; and the flower 

 of thy bosom has given a new flower to the hills of 



