"When soothed awhile by milder airs, Thee Winter in the garland wears, That thinly shades his few gray hairs, Spring cannot shun thee. While Summer fields are thine by right, And Autumn, melancholy wight, Doth in thy crimson head delight When rains are on thee. Child of the year that round dost run Thy course, bold lover of the sun, And cheerful when thy day's begun As morning leveret. Thy long-lost praise thou shalt regain, Dear shalt thou be to future men, As in old time, thou not in vain Art nature's favourite." The other poem from Wordsworth that I shall read to you is one that has received the highest praise from all readers, and by Ruskin (no mean critic, and certainly not always given to praises) is described as "two delicious stanzas, followed by one of heavenly imagination."[372:1] The poem is "An Address to the Daisy"-- "A nun demure--of holy port; A 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. 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; Let peace come never to his rest Who shall reprove thee. Sweet 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." With these beautiful lines I might well conclude my notices of the poetical history of the Daisy, but, to bring it down more closely to our own times, I will remind you of a poem by Tennyson, entitled "The Daisy." It is a pleasant description of a southern tour brought to his memory by finding a dried Daisy in a book. He says-- "We took our last adieu, And up the snowy Splugen drew, But ere we reached the highest summit, I plucked a Daisy, I gave it you, It told of England then to me, And now it tells of Italy." Thus I have picked several pretty flowers of poetry for you from the time of Chaucer to our own. I could have made the posy fifty-fold larger, but I could, probably, have found no flowers for the posy more beautiful, or more curious, than these few.