264 The Daisy. 



" The hero is fallen, say ihey, he is fallen ! and the sound of 

 his arms echoes over the plain ; disease, which takes away con., 

 rage ; age, which dishonors heroes, can no longer touch him • l le 

 is fallen, and the sound of his arms echoes over the plain ! 



" Received into the heavenly palace inhabited by his ancestors 

 he drinks with them the cup of immortality. Oh ! daughter of 

 Oscar, dry thy tears of grief; the hero is fallen! he is fallen! 

 and the sound of his arms echoes over the plain. 



" Then, in a softer voice, they said again unto her, The child 

 who has not seen the light, has not known the bitterness of life- 

 its young soul, borne on glittering wings, arrives with the dili- 

 gent Aurora in the palace of day. The souls of children who 

 have, like it, broken the chains of life without sorrow, reclining 

 on golden clouds, present themselves, and open the mysterious 

 portals of Flora's cabinet. There this innocent troop, ignorant 

 of evil, are forever occupied in enclosing in imperceptible seeds 

 the flowers that blow in each spring ; every morn they scatter 

 these seeds upon the earth with the tears of Aurora; millions of 

 delicate hands enclose the rose in its bud, the grain of wheat in 

 its folds, the vast branches of the oak in a single acorn, and 

 sometimes an entire forest in an invisible seed. 



"We have seen, oh, Malvina! the infant you regret, reclin- 

 ing on a light mist ; it approached us, and has shed on our fields 

 a harvest of new flowers. Look ! oh, Malvina ! among these 

 flowers we distinguish 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. Dry thy tears, oh, Malvina! the hero is 

 dead, covered with his arms ; and the flower of thy bosom has 

 given a new flower to the hills of Cromlin. 



" The sweetness of these songs relieved Malvina's grief; she 

 took her golden harp, and repeated the hymn of the new-born. 



" Since that day the daughters of Morven have consecrated 

 the Daisy to infancy ; it is, said they, the flower of innocence, 

 the flower of the new-born." 



With little here to do or see 

 Of things that in the great world be, 

 Sweet daisy ! oft I talk to thee, 

 For thou art worthy 



