As I sayd erst, when comen is the Maie,
That in my bedde there dawneth me no daie
That I nam up and walking in the mede
To see this floure agenst the Sunne sprede,
When it up riseth early by the morrow
That blisfull sight softeneth all my sorrow.
_Chaucer_.
The poet then goes on with his hearty laudation of this lilliputian
luminary of the fields, and hesitates not to describe it as "of all
floures the floure." The famous Scottish Peasant loved it just as truly,
and did it equal honor. Who that has once read, can ever forget his
harmonious and pathetic address to a mountain daisy on turning it up
with the plough? I must give the poem a place here, though it must be
familiar to every reader. But we can read it again and again, just as we
can look day after day with undiminished interest upon the flower that
it commemorates.
Mrs. Stowe (the American writer) observes that "the daisy with its wide
plaited ruff and yellow centre is not our (that is, an American's)
flower. The English flower is the
Wee, modest, crimson tipped flower
which Burns celebrated. It is what we (in America) raise in green-houses
and call the Mountain Daisy. Its effect, growing profusely about fields
and grass-plats, is very beautiful."
TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY.
ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH IN APRIL, 1786
Wee, modest, crimson tipped flow'r,
Thou's met me in an evil hour,
For I maun[080] crush amang the stoure[081]
Thy slender stem,
To spare thee now is past my pow'r,
Thou bonnie gem.
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