238 A WHITE-PAPER GARDEN 



Wherever he could plant a daisy in the fair 

 gardens of his verse there shine these 



" Pearled Arcturii of the Earth, 

 The constellated flower that never sets." 



Daisies were dear to Shelley and to Keats 

 as well as to Burns, to Goethe also (English, by 

 right of translation), but I cannot but think 

 that he cared more for the more sophisticated 

 myrtles and laurels ! 



For Spenser, who loved all loveliness, I 

 cannot find any distinctive favourite : that a 

 flower was fair to look at and sweet to breathe 

 was enough for him. Shakespeare wove many 

 garlands of English blossoms, but most of all 

 he loved the cowslips of the Avonside fields. 

 The footsteps of Johnson's " Gentle Shep- 

 herdess " were blotted out by the field-flowers 

 that sprang up wherever her light steps 

 passed ; and the best gifts which Sir Walter 

 Raleigh's shepherd could offer to his dear, came 

 from the hedgerow. 



In Milton's " Lycidas " he gives one perfect 

 characterisation : 



" The pansy freaked with jet." 



Otherwise his botany is that of one of those 



