The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare
flower most happily chosen. Among the flowers are--
"The Roses raigning in the pride of May,
Sharp Isope good for greene woundes' remedies,
Faire Marigoldes, and bees-alluring Thyme,
Sweet Marjoram, and Daysies decking prime."
By "decking prime" he means they are the ornament of the morning.[366:1]
Again he introduces the Daisy in a stanza of much beauty, that commences
the June Eclogue of the "Shepherd's Calendar."
"Lo! Colin, here the place whose pleasaunt syte
From other shades hath weand my wandring minde.
Tell me, what wants me here to work delyte?
The simple ayre, the gentle warbling winde,
So calm, so cool, as no where else I finde;
The Grassie ground, with daintie Daysies dight;
The Bramble bush, where byrdes of every kinde
To the waters' fall their tunes attemper right."
From Spenser we come to Shakespeare, and when we remember the vast
acquaintance with flowers of every kind that he shows, and especially
when we remember how often he almost seems to go out of his way to tell
of the simple wild flowers of England, it is surprising that the Daisy
is almost passed over entirely by him. Here are the passages in which he
names the flowers. First, in the poem of the "Rape of Lucrece," he has a
very pretty picture of Lucrece as she lay asleep--
"Without the bed her other faire hand was
On the green coverlet, whose perfect white
Showed like an April Daisy on the Grass."
In "Love's Labour's Lost" is the song of Spring, beginning--
"When Daisies pied, and Violets blue;
And Lady-smocks all silver-white,
And Cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight."
In "Hamlet" Daisies are twice mentioned in connection with Ophelia in
her madness. "There's a Daisy!" she said, as she distributed her
flowers; but she made no comment on the Daisy as she did on her other
flowers. And, in the description of her death, the Queen tells us that--
"There with fantastick garlands did she come
Of Crow-flowers, Nettles, Daisies, and Long Purples."
And in "Cymbeline" the General Lucius gives directions for the burial of
Cloten--
"Let us
Find out the prettiest Daisied plot we can,
And make him with our pikes and partisans
A grave."
And in the introductory song to the "Two Noble Kinsmen," which is
claimed by some as Shakespeare's, we find among the other flowers of
spring--
"Daisies smel-lesse, yet most quaint."
These are the only places in which the Daisy is mentioned in
Shakespeare's plays, and it is a little startling to find that of these
six one is in a song for clowns, and two others are connected with the
poor mad princess. I hope that you will not use Shakespeare's authority
against me, that to talk of Daisies is only fit for clowns and madmen.
Contemporary with Shakespeare was Cutwode, who in the "Caltha Poetarum,"
published in 1599, thus describes the Daisy--
"On her attends the Daisie dearly dight
that pretty Primula of Lady Ver
As handmaid to her Mistresse day and night
so doth she watch, so waiteth she on her,
With double diligence, and dares not stir,
A fairer flower perfumes not forth in May
Then is this Daisie or this Primula.
About her neck she wears a rich wrought ruffe,
with double sets most brave and broad bespread,
Resembling lovely Lawn or Cambrick stuffe
pind up and prickt upon her yealow head,
Wearing her haire on both sides of her shead;
And with her countenance she hath acast
Wagging the w[=a]ton with each wynd and blast."
Stanza 21, 22.
Drayton, in the "Polyolbion," 15th Song, represents the Naiads engaged
in twining garlands for the marriage of Tame and Isis, and considering
that he--
"Should not be dressed with flowers to garden that belong
(His bride that better fitteth), but only such as spring
From the replenisht meads and fruitful pasture neere,"
they collect among other wild flowers--
"The Daysie over all those sundry sweets so thick
As nature doth herself, to imitate her right;
Who seems in that her pearle so greatly to delight
That every plaine therewith she powdereth to beholde."
And to the same effect, in his "Description of Elysium"--
"There Daisies damask every place,
Nor once their beauties lose,
That when proud Phoebus turns his face,
Themselves they scorn to close."
Browne, contemporary with Shakespeare, has these pretty lines on the
Daisy--
"The Daisy scattered on each mead and down,
A golden tuft within a silver crown;
(Fair fall that dainty flower! and may there be
No shepherd graced that doth not honour thee!)."
_Brit. Past._, ii. 3.
And the following must be about the same date--
"The pretty Daisy which doth show
Her love to Phoebus, bred her woe;
(Who joys to see his cheareful face,
And mournes when he is not in place)--
'Alacke! alacke! alacke!' quoth she,
'There's none that ever loves like me.'"
_The Deceased Maiden's Lover_--Roxburghe Ballads, i, 341.
I am not surprised to find that Milton barely mentions the Daisy. His
knowledge of plants was very small compared to Shakespeare's, and seems
to have been, for the most part, derived from books. His descriptions of
plants all savour more of study than the open air. I only know of two
places in which he mentions the Daisy. In the "l'Allegro" he speaks of
"Meadows trim with Daisies pied," and in another place he speaks of
"Daisies trim." But I am surprised to find the Daisy overlooked by two
such poets as Robert Herrick and George Herbert. Herrick sang of flowers
most sweetly, few if any English poets have sung of them more sweetly,
but he has little to say of the Daisy. He 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--
"Wee, modest, crimson-tippèd flower,
Thou'st met me in an evil hour;
For I must crush amongst the stour
Thy slender stem.
To spare thee now is past my power,
Thou bonny gem.
Cold blew the bitter, biting north,
Upon thy humble birth,
Yet cheerfully thou venturest forth
Amid the storm,
Scarce reared above the Parent-earth
Thy tender form.
The flaunting flowers our gardens yield
High sheltering woods and walks must shield;
But thou, between the random bield
Of clod or stone,
Adorn'st the rugged stubble field,
Unseen, alone.
There, in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snowy bosom sunward spread,
Thou lift'st thy unassuming head
In humble guise;
But now the share uptears thy bed,
And low thou lies!"
With Burns we may well join Clare, another peasant poet from
Northamptonshire, whose poems are not so much known as they deserve to
be. His allusions to wild flowers always mark his real observation of
them, and his allusions to the Daisy are frequent; thus--
"Smiling on the sunny plain
The lovely Daisies blow,
Unconscious of the careless feet
That lay their beauties low."
Again, alluding to his own obscurity--
"Green turfs allowed forgotten heap,
Is all that I shall have,
Save that the little Daisies creep
To deck my humble grave."
Again, in his description of evening, he does not omit to notice the
closing of the Daisy at sunset--
"Now the blue fog creeps along,
And the birds forget their song;
Flowers now sleep within their hoods,
Daisies button into buds."
And so we come to Wordsworth, whose love of the Daisy almost equalled
Chaucer's. His allusions and addresses to the Daisy are numerous, but I
have only space for a small selection. First, are two stanzas from a
long poem specially to the Daisy--
"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.