Thou bright "e'e of daie" that is opening to the sun,
Within thy golden disk the day hath just begun,
Thou the little wanderer of a lowly birth,
So humbly bending with the wind to mother earth,
As if in grateful benediction of God's praise,
Extending to her bosom all thy florets' rays,
Beseeching nurture from the dew within her breast--
In tenderness of all thy love and self-bequest--
For dust, wherein thy undergrowing tendrils lay,
While thy weanèd blossoms follow the sun by day.
A legend of the Mythologic lore
Recites the transformation of thy starry flower
From a dryad's beauty--by Vertumnus deity
Of buds and blossoms--who from a wood nymph rescued thee--
Imprisoned in her heart--and saved thy golden eye
For glancing in Love's heart for Love's reply,
When some lorn maiden sighs for Love's revealing
Of some sweet mystery of Love's concealing,
While thy pearly leaves are tolling the silent knell--
As one by one to earth they fall through numbered spell
Of incantation--"He loves me; he loves me not."
To be with him his Heart or be by him forgot;
Should Fate decree the answering "No," through sighing breath
On sod below, thy lidless eye will mourn in death
The wounds of Sorrow, that plucked thee from the day
To threnodize a measure in Love's pathetic lay.
To Royalty and Throne thy sweet and modest face,
In peace o'er heart of doubtful rest, hath lent a grace,
While courtiers multiplied thy beauty in device
On sheening arms--by bannered virtues to entice
The sunshine of the Queenly smile from royal throne,
She of Anjoy--Margaret--the unhappy one:
Unostentatious thou, transported from the fields
To exile, in pomp and blazonry of shields
To glitter in the sun immortalized through pain
Of never giving back to sun his glance again!
Entwined with laurel leaves in thy simplicity,
In homage to a genius--true nobility,--
Thine eye was molded by the skill of artisan
From virgin gold, thy florets from the moonlight's wan
Of silver mine, and coinèd in a glorious crown
With peace in restfulness was ever looking down
Through lucid drops, the consolidated dews
And thousand lustres of the diamond's gorgeous hues;
From Marguerite to Marguerite, the pearl of France,
This tribute from the Scot thy beauty did enhance;
The leaves that nature wreathes thus harmonized a name,
With pearls of sea and land for "Pearl of pearls" in fame,
Undergrowth of Nature's heart, and bloom that robes the sod,
Transfigured through a mortal skill to speak of God,
And symbolize in beauty, poesy, and song,
Thy captive life, dear Daisy! that Love and Fame prolong.
When on the wayside in thy humble purity
Thy faithful eye is ever paying sovereignty
To sun--though to thy root the thorns and briers cling
Through stones that choke thy breath--a gladness dost thou bring,
Dear Daisy, to my heart--on mountain, in the shade,
Or on the cool refreshing sod within the glade,
With thistles and with thorns that grow beside the road;
Where'er thou art, thou speakest to my soul of God.
Thy bending to the winds, thy looking at the sky
With cheerfulness through storms in thy adversity,
Thy closèd lids at night, thy brightened eye at morn,
At sun's light glancing day by day with love newborn,
Bespeak the glow that cometh through a sorrow's night,
The benediction of God's justice and His might.
