The simile was second-hand.
"Take birds, for instance. No remark
Of mine on birds could but be stale;
Shelley and Wordsworth own the lark
(Which Shakspeare too had bid us hark),
While Keats has bagged the nightingale.
"With rose and lily surfeited,
Burns sang the daisy. Here's a fraud
Of Tennyson's: I might have said
How daisies crimson 'neath the tread