THE DAISY OF THE DALE. 
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retainers, and the two old knights, and their fol¬ 
lowers, and a great concourse of people, who had 
sallied out from the castle, and were going to hunt 
the noblest hart they could find in the thicket, and 
to honour by their presence the marriage ceremony 
of “ The Daisy of the Dale.” 
The Daisy was Chaucer’s favourite flower ; and 
never since hath bard done it such reverence as 
the venerable father of English poetry. All worship, 
saving his own, is that of words only : his is the 
adoration of a heart which overflowed with love for 
the Daisy. He tells us how he rose with the sun 
to watch this beautiful flower first open, and how 
he knelt beside it again in the evening to watch 
its starry rim close; that the Daisy alone could 
allure him from his study and his books, and, when 
he had exhausted all his stores of beautiful imagery 
in its praise, his song was ever ready to burst out 
anew as he exclaimed, “ Oh, the daisy, it is sweet! ” 
for his sake it ought to have been selected as 
the emblem of Poetry, and throughout all time 
called “ Chaucer’s flower.” For our part we never 
wander forth into the fields in spring to look for 
it, without picturing Chaucer, in his old costume, 
resting on his “ elbow and his side,” as he many 
