G. Wither

In youth from rock to rock I went,From hill to hill in discontentOf 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 wearsThat 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 delightWhen 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 remoteWe meet thee, like a pleasant thought,When such are wanted.

Be violets in their secret mewsThe flowers the wanton Zephyrs choose;Proud be the rose, with rains and dewsHer head impearling,Thou liv'st with less ambitious aim,Yet hast not gone without thy fame;Thou art indeed by many a claimThe Poet's darling.

If to a rock from rains he fly,Or, some bright day of April sky,Imprisoned by hot sunshine lieNear the green holly,And wearily at length should fare;He needs but look about, and thereThou art!--a friend at hand, to scareHis melancholy.

A hundred times, by rock or bower,Ere thus I have lain couched an hour,Have I derived from thy sweet powerSome 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 urnA lowlier pleasure;The homely sympathy that heedsThe common life, our nature breeds;A wisdom fitted to the needsOf hearts at leisure.

Fresh-smitten by the morning ray,When thou art up, alert and gay,Then, cheerful Flower! my spirits playWith kindred gladness:And when, at dusk, by dews opprestThou sink'st, the image of thy restHath often eased my pensive breastOf 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 runThy pleasant course,--when day's begunAs ready to salute the sunAs lark or leveret,Thy long-lost praise thou shalt regain;Nor be less dear to future menThan in old time;--thou not in vainArt Nature's favourite.

For illustration of the last stanza, see Chaucer's Prologue to 'TheLegend of Good Women'.

'As I seyde erst, whanne comen is the May,That in my bed ther daweth me no day,That I nam uppe and walkyng in the mede,To seen this floure agein the sonne sprede,Whan it up rysith erly by the morwe;That blisful sight softneth al my sorwe,So glad am I, whan that I have presenceOf it, to doon it alle reverence,As she that is of alle floures flour.'To seen this flour so yong, so fresshe of hewe,Constreynde me with so gredy desire,That in myn herte I feele yet the fire,That made me to ryse er yt wer day,And this was now the firste morwe of May,With dredful hert, and glad devociounFor to ben at the resurreccionOf this flour, whan that yt shulde uncloseAgayne the sonne, that roos as rede as roseAnd doune on knes anoon ryght I me sette,And as I koude, this fresshe flour I grette,Knelying alwey, til it unclosed was,Upon the smale, softe, swote gras.

Again, in The 'Cuckoo and the Nightingale', after a wakeful night, thePoet rises at dawn, and wandering forth, reaches a "laund of white andgreen."

'So feire oon had I nevere in bene,The grounde was grene, y poudred with daysé,The floures and the gras ilike al hie,Al grene and white, was nothing elles sene.'