To the Daisy by William Wordsworth

Lyrics

In youth from rock to rock I went From hill to hill, in discontent Of pleasure high and turbulent Most pleas'd 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! When soothed a while by milder airs Thee Winter in the garland wears That thinly shades his few grey hairs; Spring cannot shun thee; Whole summer fields are thine by right; And Autumn, melancholy Wight! Doth in thy crimson head delight When rains are on thee In shoals and bands, a morrice train Thou greet'st the Traveller in the lane; If welcome once thou count'st it gain; Thou art not daunted Nor car'st if thou be set at naught; And oft alone in nooks remote We meet thee, like a pleasant thought When such are wanted Be Violets in their secret mews The flowers the wanton Zephyrs chuse; Proud be the Rose, with rains and dews Her head impearling; Thou liv'st with less ambitious aim Yet hast not gone without thy fame; Thou art indeed by many a claim The Poet's darling If to a rock from rains he fly Or, some bright day of April sky Imprison'd by hot sunshine lie Near the green holly And wearily at length should fare; He need but look about, and there Thou art! a Friend at hand, to scare His melancholy A hundred times, by rock or bower Ere thus I have lain couch'd an hour Have I derived from thy sweet power Some 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 urn A lowlier pleasure; The homely sympathy that heeds The common life, our nature breeds; A wisdom fitted to the needs Of hearts at leisure When, smitten by the morning ray I see thee rise alert and gay Then, cheerful Flower! my spirits play With kindred motion: At dusk, I've seldom mark'd thee press The ground, as if in thankfulness Without some feeling, more or less Of true devotion 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 6 Child of the Year! that round dost run Thy course, bold lover of the sun And cheerful when the day's begun As morning Leveret Thou long the Poet's praise shalt gain: Thou wilt be more belov'd by men In times to come; thou not in vain Art Nature's Favorite