=Discussion.= 1. How does the English daisy, which Burns describes in the first line of the poem, differ from the daisy that you know, the American daisy? 2. Select and give the meaning of words that illustrate Burns’s use of the Scotch dialect. 3. Picture the incident related in the first stanza. 4. What do you know about the lark that helps you to understand why it is called the daisy’s “companion” and “neebor”? 5. What comparison is made between the daisy and the garden flowers? 6. What “share” is mentioned in stanza 5? 7. What characteristic of the flower does Burns seem to like best? =Phrases= companion meet, 61, 8 purpling east, 61, 12 glinted forth, 61, 15 parent-earth, 61, 17 unassuming head, 62, 9 humble guise, 62, 10 luckless starr’d, 62, 14 prudent lore, 62, 16 SWEET PEAS JOHN KEATS Here are sweet peas, on tiptoe for a flight, With wings of gentle flush o’er delicate white, And taper fingers catching at all things, To bind them all about with tiny rings. Linger a while upon some bending planks That lean against a streamlet’s rushy banks, And watch intently Nature’s gentle doings; They will be found softer than ringdove’s cooings. How silent comes the water round that bend! Not the minutest whisper does it send To the o’erhanging sallows; blades of grass Slowly across the checkered shadows pass. NOTES AND QUESTIONS =Biography.= John Keats (1795-1821) was of humble birth, being the son of a London stablekeeper. He lived at the time of Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, and Leigh Hunt, from all of whom he gathered inspiration. His years were few, and his fame did not come while he was living. He had a passion for beauty, which found expression in all his poetry. On account of failing health he went to Rome in 1820, where he died the year following. =Discussion.= 1. Why does the poet say sweet peas are “on tiptoe for a flight”? 2. What are the wings of the sweet pea? 3. The poet tells of the perfect stillness of the moving water in the stream; what words does he use in lines immediately preceding to prepare you for this stillness? 4. What picture does the last sentence of the poem give you? =Phrases= rushy banks, 63, 6 ringdove’s cooings, 63, 8 o’erhanging sallows, 63, 11 checkered shadows, 63, 12 CHORUS OF FLOWERS LEIGH HUNT We are the sweet flowers, Born of sunny showers; Think, whene’er you see us, what our beauty saith; Utterance, mute and bright, Of some unknown delight, We fill the air with pleasure by our simple breath. All who see us love us. We befit all places. Unto sorrow we give smiles, and unto graces, graces.