Tusser.
To the Daffodil.
O Love-star of the unbeloved March,
When cold and shrill,
Forth flows beneath a low dim-lighted arch
The wind that beats sharp crag and barren hill,
And keeps unfilmed the lately torpid rill!
Herald and harbinger! with thee
Begins the year's great jubilee!
Of her solemnities sublime
(A sacristan whose gusty taper
Flashes through earliest morning vapour)
Thou ring'st dark nocturns and dim prime.
Birds that have yet no heart for song
Gain strength with thee to twitter,
And, warm at last, where hollies throng,
The mirror'd sunbeams glitter.
A. De Vere.