FABLES OF FLORA. 25 
THE DAISY. 
This Beautiful English flower is esteemed the 
emblem of faithful love. It has derived this sig¬ 
nification, perhaps, from the poet Chaucer, who 
states that the fair queen Alceste, having sacri¬ 
ficed her life to preserve that of her husband, 
was, for this rare virtue, changed into a daisy. 
Spenser speaks of 
« The little daizie that at evening closes.’ 
“Wordsworth makes it the theme of a beautiful 
Ode, and Bums of a touching Lament. The 
daisy is the Scotch goivan alluded to in his ex¬ 
quisite song of 1 Auld Lang Syne.’ Montgomery 
praises it in the following sweet little verses. 
‘ There is a flower, a little flower, 
With silver crest and golden eye, 
That welcomes every changing hour, 
And weathers every sky. 
•T is Flora’s page; in every place, 
In every season, fresh and fair, 
It opens in perennial grace, 
And blossoms everywhere. 
O'er waste and woodland, rock and plain, 
Its humble buds unheeded rise i 
The Hose has but a summer reign, 
The Daisy never dies.’ 
