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 an 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 opprest

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 pleasant course, - when day 's begun

As ready to salute the sun

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 favorite.*

1802.

See, in Chaucer and the elder Poets, the honors for

merly paid to this flower.

VIII.

TO THE SAME FLOWER.

WITH little here to do or see

Of things that in the great world be,
Daisy! again I talk to thee,
For thou art worthy,

Thou unassuming Commonplace
Of Nature, with that homely face,
And yet with something of a grace,
Which Love makes for thee!

Oft on the dappled turf at ease
I sit, and play with similes,

Loose types of things through all degrees,
Thoughts of thy raising:

And many a fond and idle name

I give to thee, for praise or blame,
As is the humor of the game,
While I am gazing.

A nun demure, of lowly port:

Or sprightly maiden, of Love's court,

In thy simplicity the sport

Of all temptations;

A queen in crown of rubies drest;

A starveling in a scanty vest;

Are all, as seems to suit thee best,
Thy appellations.

A little cyclops, with one eye
Staring to threaten and defy,
That thought comes next,

The freak is over,

and instantly

The shape will vanish, — and behold

A silver shield with boss of gold,

That spreads itself, some faery bold
In fight to cover!

I see thee glittering from afar,
And then thou art a pretty star;
Not quite so fair as many are
In heaven above thee!

Yet like a star, with glittering crest,
Self-poised in air thou seem'st to rest;
May peace come never to his nest,
Who shall reprove thee!

Bright Flower! for by that name at last,
When all my reveries are past,

I call thee, and to that cleave fast,
Sweet, silent creature!

That breath'st with me in sun and air,

Do thou, as thou art wont, repair
My heart with gladness, and a share
Of thy meek nature!

IX.

THE GREEN LINNET.

BENEATH these fruit-tree boughs that shed
Their snow-white blossoms on my head,
With brightest sunshine round me spread
Of Spring's unclouded weather,

In this sequestered nook how sweet
To sit upon my orchard-seat!

And birds and flowers once more to greet,

My last year's friends together.

One have I marked, the happiest guest

In all this covert of the blest:

Hail to thee, far above the rest

In joy of voice and pinion! Thou, Linnet! in thy green array,

Presiding spirit here to-day,

Dost lead the revels of the May;

And this is thy dominion.

While birds, and butterflies, and flowers,
Make all one band of paramours,

Thou, ranging up and down the bowers,

Art sole in thy employment:
A Life, a Presence like the air,
Scattering thy gladness without care,
Too blest with any one to pair;

Thyself thy own enjoyment.