DAISIES
Over the shoulders and slopes of the dune
I saw the white daisies go down to the sea,
A host in the sunshine, an army in June,
The people God sends us to set our hearts free.
The bobolinks rallied them up from the dell,
The orioles whistled them out of the wood;
And all of their singing was, “Earth, it is well!”
And all of their dancing was, “Life, thou art good!”
Richard Burton
Richard (Eugene) Burton was born at Hartford, Connecticut, March 14, 1861. He has taught English at various colleges and universities since 1888, and has been head of the English department of the University of Minnesota since 1906. His first book, Dumb in June (1895), is, in many ways, his best. It contains a buoyant lyricism, a more conscious use of the strain developed in Carman and Hovey’s Songs from Vagabondia—a mood which he has never surpassed. Much of his other verse is far less distinctive, being what might be called “anonymous poetry”: a poetry that has, in spite of certain excellent qualities, little trace of the individual and practically no stamp of personality or place. The succeeding Lyrics of Brotherhood (1899) has a wider vision if a more limited music; several of the poems in this collection reflect the hungers, dreams and unsung melodies of the dumb and defeated multitudes. From the Book of Life (1909) has scarcely as much power and less poetry.
Besides his verse, Burton has written several books of essays, a life of Whittier and various volumes on the drama.