April 11: The Daisy

There is a flower, a little flower

With silver crest and golden eye,

That welcomes every changing hour,

And weathers every sky.

The prouder beauties of the field

In gay but quick succession shine;

Race after race their honors yield,

The flourish and decline.

But this small flower, to Nature dear,

While moons and stars their courses run

Inwreathes the circle of the year,

Campanion of the sun.

It smiles upon the lap of May,

To sultry August spreads its charm,

Lights pale October on his way,

And twines December's arm.

The purple heath and golden broom

On moory mountains catch the gale;

O'er lawns the lily sheds perfume,

The violet in the vale.

But this bold floweret climbs the hill,

Hides in the forest, haunts the glen,

Peeps round the fox's den.

Within the garden's cultured round

It shares the sweet carnation's bed;

And blloms on consecrated ground

In honor of the dead.

The lambkin crops its crimson gem

'The wild bee murmurs on its breast;

The blu-fly bends its pensile stem

Light o're the skylark's nest.

'Tos Flora's page, -in every place,

In every season, fresh and fair;

It opens with perennial grace,

And blossoms everywhere.

On waste and woodland, rock and plain,

Its humble buds unheeded rise;

The rose has but a summer reign;

The daisy never dies!

James Montgomery