"THE SWEET O' THE YEAR" 119 



The daisy is among the flowers in the fantastic gar- 

 lands that poor Ophelia wove before her death. 1 



The botanical name Belli s shows the origin of the 

 flower. Belides, a beautiful Dryad, trying to escape 

 the pursuit of Vertumnus, god of gardens and 

 orchards, prayed to the gods for help; and they 

 changed her into the tiny flower. In allusion to this 

 Rapin wrote: 



When the bright Ram, bedecked with stars of gold, 

 Displays his fleece the Daisy will unfold, 

 To nymphs a chaplet and to beds a grace, 

 Who once herself had borne a virgin's face. 



The daisy was under the care of Venus. It has 

 been beloved by English poets ever since Chaucer 

 sang the praises of the day's eye daisy. Chaucer 

 tells us, in what is perhaps the most worshipful poem 

 ever addressed to a flower, that he always rose early 

 and went out to the fields, or meadows, to pay his 

 devotions to this "flower of flowers," whose praises 

 he intended to sing while ever his life lasted, and 

 he bemoaned the fact, moreover, that he had not 

 words at his command to do it proper reverence. 



Next to Chaucer in paying homage to the daisy 

 comes Wordworth with his 

 ^'Hamlet"; Act IV, Scene VII. 



