unconsciously the daisy undergoes a metempsychosis;
its soul is transferred at will from meadow to book and from book
to meadow, without losing a particle of its vitality.

To premise with the daisy historically: Among the Romans it
was called _Bellis_, or "pretty one;" in modern Greece, it
is star-flower. In France, Spain, and Italy, it was named
"Marguerita," or pearl, a term which, being of Greek origin,
doubtless was brought from Constantinople by the Franks. From
the word "Marguerita," poems in praise of the daisy were termed
"Bargerets." Warton calls them "Bergerets," or "songs du Berger,"
that is, shepherd songs. These were pastorals, lauding fair
mistresses and maidens of the day under the familiar title of
the daisy. Froissart has written a characteristic Bargeret; and
Chaucer, in his "Flower and the Leaf," sings:

"And, at the last, there began, anone,
A lady for to sing right womanly,
A bargaret in praising the daisie;
For as methought among her notes sweet,
She said, 'Si douce est la Margarite."

Speght supposes that Chaucer here intends to pay a compliment to
Lady Margaret, King Edward's daughter, Countess of Pembroke, one
of his patronesses. But Warton hesitates to express a decided
opinion as to the reference. Chaucer shows his love for the daisy
in other places. In his "Prologue to the Legend of Good Women,"
alluding to the power with which the flowers drive him from his
books, he says that

"all the floures in the mede,
Than love I most these floures white and rede,
Soch that men callen daisies in our toun
To hem I have so great affectioun,
As I sayd erst, whan comen is the May,
That in my bedde there daweth me no day,
That I nam up and walking in the mede,
To seen this floure agenst the Sunne sprede."

To see it early in the morn, the poet continues:

"That blissfull sight softeneth all my sorow,
So glad am I, whan that I have presence
Of it, to done it all reverence
As she that is of all floures the floure."

Chaucer says that to him it is ever fresh, that he will cherish
it till his heart dies; and then he describes himself resting on
the grass, gazing on the daisy:

"Adowne full softly I gan to sink,
And leaning on my elbow and my side,
The long day I shope me for to abide,
For nothing els, and I shall nat lie,
But for to looke upon the daisie,
That well by reason men it call may
The daisie, or els the eye of day."

Chauc