To The Daisy

W. Wordsworth

To the Daisy

WITH little here to do or see
Of things that in the great world be,
Sweet Daisy! oft I talk to thee,
For thou art worthy,
Thou unassuming commonplace	5
Of Nature, with that homely face,
And yet with something of a grace
Which Love makes for thee!
Oft on the dappled turf at ease
I sit and play with similes,	10
Loose types of things through all degrees,
Thoughts of thy raising;
And many a fond and idle name
I give to thee, for praise or blame,
As is the humour of the game,	15
While I am gazing.
A nun demure, of lowly port;
Or sprightly maiden, of Love's court,
In thy simplicity the sport
Of all temptations;	20
A queen in crown of rubies drest;
A starveling in a scanty vest;
Are all, as seems to suit thee best,
Thy appellations.
A little Cyclops, with one eye	25
Staring to threaten and defy,
That thought comes next—and instantly
The freak is over,
The shape will vanish, and behold!
A silver shield with boss of gold	30
That spreads itself, some fairy bold
In fight to cover.
I see thee glittering from afar—
And then thou art a pretty star,
Not quite so fair as many are	35
In heaven above thee!
Yet like a star, with glittering crest,
Self-poised in air thou seem'st to rest;—
May peace come never to his nest
Who shall reprove thee!	40
Sweet Flower! for by that name at last
When all my reveries are past
I call thee, and to that cleave fast,
Sweet silent creature!
That breath'st with me in sun and air,	45
Do thou, as thou art wont, repair
My heart with gladness, and a share
Of thy meek nature!

A rather nice introduction to my garden update, don't you think? This one is mainly daisies, today's light was perfect as it was dark and cloudy. That makes for perfectly uniform and very soft light. Yum yum ...

The daisies are looking quite wonderful right now ... fully blooming and round and full. Fresh, with few flaws. And so very orange :-)


My Nikon D300 battery died, likely because I left it attached to the USB, which drains it for some reason. Same effect happens to the Canon G10. Anyway, while the D300 battery went on the charger, I grabbed the D70s and the Tamron 180mm Macro and my tripod and off I went. Well ... not that far of course, since the bush is about 20 or 30 feet from my patio door.


I shot these images at fairly small apertures in order to maximize depth of field and get decent sharpness across the whole flower, fairly hard to do when you are filling the frame with a fairly small flower.

And at the very end, I decided to capture a new image of the False Spirea bush, whose flowers are quite whispy ... almost gossamer. in quality. What I have noticed is that this lens resolves more detail that others I have used to photograph this flower ...



And, as always, to see the images at their cleanest and sharpest, click on them and then return with your back button.