INNOCENCE. 
168 
“ 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.” 
-that old favourite —the daisy — born 
By millions in the balmy, vernal morn — 
The child’s own flower. 
CARRINGTON, 
Trampled under foot, 
The daisy lives, and strikes its little root 
Into the lap of time: centuries may come, 
And pass away into the silent tomb. 
And still the child, hid in the womb of time, 
Shall smile and pluck them, when this simple 
rhyme 
Shall be forgotten, like a church-yard-stone, 
Or lingering lie unnoticed and alone, 
When eighteen hundred years, our common date, 
Grow many thousands in their marching state, 
Aye, still the child, with pleasure in his eye. 
Shall cry — the daisy! — a familiar cry — 
And run to pluck it, in the self-same state 
As when Time found it in his infant date ; 
And, like a child himself, when all was new, 
Might smile with wonder, and take notice too ; 
Its little golden bosom, frilled with snow. 
Might win e’en Eve to stoop adown, and show 
Her partner, Adam, in the silky grass, 
The little gem, that smiled where pleasure was, 
And loving Eve, from Eden followed ill, 
And bloomed with sorrow, and lives smiling still ; 
As once in Eden, under heaven’s breath, 
So new on earth, and on the lap of death, 
It smiles for ever. clare. 
