TIIE LANGUAGE OF FLO WEES. 
89 
So lienee I have so great affection, 
As I sayd erst, when comen is the Maie, 
That in my bedde there daweth me no daie 
That I am up and walking in the mede, 
To see this flower against the sunne sprede; 
When it up risetli early by the morrow, 
That blissful sight softeneth all my sorrow, 
So glad am I that when I have presence 
Of it to done it alle reverence, 
As she that is of all floures the floure, 
Fulfilled of all vertue and honoure, 
And ever ylike faire and fresh of hewe, 
And ever I love it, and ever ylike newe, 
And shall till that mine herte die.” 
In the times of chivalry, when a lady neither accepted 
nor rejected a wooer’s suit, she expressed, by a wreath 
of single white daisies, the sentiment, “ I will think 
of it.” 
“ The band of flutes began to play, 
To which a lady sung a virelay, 
And still at every close she would repeat 
The burden of the song, The Daisy is so sweet. 
The Daisy is so sweet when she begun, 
The troops of knights and dames continued on 
The concert, and the voice so charmed my ear 
And soothed my soul, that it was heaven to hear.” 
Dryclen from Chaucer. 
“ The daisie scattered on each meade and downe, 
A golden tuft within a silver croune; 
Fayre fall that dainty floure ! and may there be 
No shepherd graced, that doth not honor thee! ” 
W. Browne. 
is the (jowan of Burns 
The daisy (or 
and the other Scotch bards. The beautiful “ Lines to 
a Mountain Daisy ” are so well known and so often 
quoted, that we forbear to give them. A few stanzas 
from a poem by Wordsworth in praise of the daisy find 
their place here. 
8 * 
