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In youth from
rock to rock I went,
From hill to hill in discontent
Of pleasure high and turbulent,
Most pleased when
most uneasy;
But now my own delights I make, -
My
thirst at every rill can slake,
And gladly Nature's
love partake
Of Thee, sweet Daisy!
Thee Winter
in the garland wears
That thinly decks his few grey
hairs;
Spring parts the clouds with softest airs,
That she may sun thee;
Whole Summer-fields are
thine by right;
And Autumn, melancholy wight!
Doth
in thy crimson head delight
When rains are on thee.
In shoals and bands, a morrice train,
Thou greet'st
the traveller in the lane,
Pleased at his greeting
thee again;
Yet nothing daunted,
Nor grieved, if
thou be set at nought:
And oft alone in nooks remote
We meet thee, like a pleasant thought,
When such are
wanted.
Be violets in their secret mews
The
flowers the wanton Zephyrs choose;
Proud be the rose,
with rains and dews
Her head impearling;
Thou
liv'st with less ambitious aim,
Yet hast not gone
without thy fame;
Thou art indeed by many a claim
The Poet's darling.
If to a rock from rains he
fly,
Or, some bright day of April sky,
Imprisoned
by hot sunshine lie
Near the green holly,
And
wearily at length should fare;
He needs but look
about, and there
Thou art! -a friend at hand, to
scare
His melancholy.
A hundred times, by rock
or bower,
Ere thus I have lain couched an hour,
Have I derived from thy sweet power
Some
apprehension;
Some steady love; some brief delight;
Some memory that had taken flight;
Some chime of
fancy wrong or right;
Or stray invention.
If
stately passions in me burn,
And one chance look to
Thee should turn,
I drink out of a humbler urn
A
lowlier pleasure;
The homely sympathy that heeds
The common life our nature breeds;
A wisdom fitted to
the needs
Of hearts at leisure.
Fresh smitten
by the morning ray,
When thou art up, alert and gay,
Then, cheerful Flower! my spirits play
With kindred
gladness:
And when, at dusk, by dews oppressed
Thou sink'st, the image of thy rest
Hath often eased
my pensive breast
Of careful sadness.
And all
day long I number yet,
All seasons through, another
debt,
Which I, wherever thou art met,
To thee am
owing;
An instinct call it, a blind sense;
A
happy, genial influence,
Coming one knows not how,
nor whence,
Nor whither going.
Child of the
Year! that round dost run
Thy course, bold lover of
the sun,
And cheerful when the day's begun
As lark
or leveret,
Thy long-lost praise thou shalt regain;
Nor be less dear to future men
Than in old time;
-thou not in vain
Art Nature's favourite.
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