The ladies dress’d in rich symars were seen
  Of Florence satin, flower’d with white and green,
  And for a shade betwixt the bloomy gridelin. 
  The borders of their petticoats below
  Were guarded thick with rubies on a row;
  And every damsel wore upon her head
  Of flowers a garland blended white and red. 
  Attired in mantles all the knights were seen,
  That gratified the view with cheerful green: 
  Their chaplets of their ladies’ colours were, 350
  Composed of white and red, to shade their shining hair. 
  Before the merry troop the minstrels play’d;
  All in their masters’ liveries were array’d,
  And clad in green, and on their temples wore
  The chaplets white and red their ladies bore. 
  Their instruments were various in their kind,
  Some for the bow, and some for breathing wind;
  The sawtry, pipe, and hautboy’s noisy band,
  And the soft lute trembling beneath the touching hand. 
  A tuft of daisies on a flowery lea 360
  They saw, and thitherward they bent their way;
  To this both knights and dames their homage made,
  And due obeisance to the daisy paid. 
  And then the band of flutes began to play,
  To which a lady sung a virelay:[78]
  And still at every close she would repeat
  The burden of the song, The daisy is so sweet,
  The daisy is so sweet:  when she begun,
  The troop of knights and dames continued on. 
  The concert and the voice so charm’d my ear,
  And soothed my soul, that it was heaven to hear. 370

    But soon their pleasure pass’d:  at noon of day
  The sun with sultry beams began to play: 
  Not Sirius shoots a fiercer flame from high,
  When with his poisonous breath he blasts the sky: 
  Then droop’d the fading flowers (their beauty fled)
  And closed their sickly eyes, and hung the head;
  And rivell’d up with heat, lay dying in their bed. 
  The ladies gasp’d, and scarcely could respire;
  The breath they drew, no longer air but fire; 380
  The fainty knights were scorch’d, and knew not where
  To run for shelter, for no shade was near;
  And after this the gathering clouds amain
  Pour’d down a storm of rattling hail and rain;
  And lightning flash’d betwixt:  the field, and flowers,
  Burnt up before, were buried in the showers. 
  The ladies and the knights, no shelter nigh,
  Bare to the weather and the wintry sky,
  Were drooping wet, disconsolate, and wan,
  And through their thin array received the rain; 390
  While those in white, protected by the tree,
  Saw pass in vain the assault, and stood from danger free;
  But as compassion moved their gentle minds,
  When ceased the storm, and silent were the winds,
  Displeased at what, not suffering they had seen,