e has one poem, indeed,
addressed specially to a Daisy, but he simply uses the little flower,
and not very successfully, as a peg on which to hang the praises of his
mistress. He uses it more happily in describing the pleasures of a
country life--

"Come live with me and thou shalt see
The pleasures I'll prepare for thee,
What sweets the country can afford,
Shall bless thy bed and bless thy board.
. . . Thou shalt eat
The paste of Filberts for thy bread,
With cream of Cowslips buttered;
Thy feasting tables shall be hills,
With Daisies spread and Daffodils."

And again--

"Young men and maids meet,
To exercise their dancing feet,
Tripping the comely country round,
With Daffodils and Daisies crowned."

George Herbert had a deep love for flowers, and a still deeper love for
finding good Christian lessons in the commonest things about him. He
delights in being able to say--

"Yet can I mark how herbs below
Grow green and gay;"

but I believe he never mentions the Daisy.

Of the poets of the seventeenth century I need only make one short
quotation from Dryden--

"And then the band of flutes began to play,
To which a lady sang a tirelay:
And still at every close she would repeat
The burden of the song--'The Daisy is so sweet,
The Daisy is so sweet'--when she began
The troops of knights and dames continued on
The consort; and the voice so charmed my ear
And soothed my soul that it was heaven to hear."

I need not dwell on the other poets of the seventeenth century. In most
of them a casual allusion to the Daisy may be found, but little more.
Nor need I dwell at all on the poets of the eighteenth century. In the
so-called Augustan age of poetry, the Daisy could not hope to attract
any attention. It was the correct thing if they had to speak of the
country to speak of the "Daisied" or "Daisy-spangled" meads, but they
could not condescend to any nearer approach to the little flower. If
they had they would have found that they had chosen their epithet very
badly. I never yet saw a "Daisy-spangled" meadow.[370:1] The flowers may
be there, but the long Grasses effectually hide them. And so I come _per
saltum_ to the end of the eighteenth century, and at once to Burns, who
brought the Daisy again into notice. He thus regrets the uprooting of
the Daisy by his plough--