THE DAISY. 



To the green field, starred over with its hosts 

 Of Daisies, countless as the blades of grass, 

 'Midst which they seemed to look and laugh at us? 



****** 

 — Daisies, with their rose-tipped silvery rays 

 Spreading around the yellow boss within — 

 And some, most prized, that had not yet displayed 

 Their fairy circle, but emerging new 

 From their green hermitage, seemed as they blushed 

 Beneath the ardent sun's admiring gaze." 



Burns says, in describing the contents of his Posy, — 

 " The Daisy 's for simplicity and unaffected air," 



the mark of that genuine purity and unsuspecting faith, 

 which is the essential characteristic of the best type of our 

 race, and which is seen in the child. Miss Twamley says 

 of it, — 



" Rich in its ignorance is Infancy, 

 And every added year but makes more poor. 

 By added knowledge, childhood's guileless wealth, — 

 The wealth of an unblighted, unchilled soul." 



Burns also calls it lowly, an epithet which the character 

 just spoken of may always claim, — 



" All beneath th' unrivalled rose 

 The lowly Daisy sweetly blows." 



We have seen that Wordsworth claims the Daisy as the 

 Poet's darling; other poets have had the same fondness 

 for it; Chaucer says, — 



71 



