Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower,
Thou's met me in an evil hour,
For I maun crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem:
To spare thee now is past my power,
Thou bonnie gem.
[Illustration: Evening Ploughing Scene]
Wee, modest crimson-tipped flow'r,
Thou'st met me in an evil hour;
For I maun crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem:
To spare thee now is past my pow'r,
Thou bonie gem.
Alas! it's no thy neibor sweet,
The bonie lark, companion meet,
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet,
Wi' spreckl'd breast!
When upward-springing, blithe, to greet
The purpling east.
Cauld blew the bitter-biting north
Upon thy early humble birth;
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
Amid the storm,
Scarce rear'd above the parent-earth
Thy tender form.
* * * * *
There, in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snawie bosom sun-ward spread,
Thou lifts thy unassuming head
In humble guise;
But now the share uptears thy bed,
And low thou lies!
* * * * *
Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate,
That fate is thine--no distant date;
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives elate,
Full on thy bloom,
Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight
Shall be thy doom!
(_To a Mountain Daisy._)
Or he becomes thoughtful and abstracted beyond his wont, after turning
up a mouse's nest with the plough; and sternly recalls his "gaudsman" or
ploughboy, who would kill the little creature out of pure thoughtlessness.
He muses upon the irony of fate: and the world is the richer for his
musings.
Wee, sleeket, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickerin brattle!
I wad be laith to run an' chase thee,
Wi' murderin' pattle!
Thou saw the fields laid bare and waste,
An' weary winter coming fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell--
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.
* * * * *
But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promised joy!
(_Lines to a Mouse._)
But nothing is too trivial to evade this large and universal sympathy
of his. "Not long ago, one morning, as I was out in the fields sowing
some grass seeds, I heard the burst of a shot from a neighbouring
plantation, and presently a poor little wounded hare came crippling by
me. You will guess my indignation at the inhuman fellow who could shoot
a hare at this season, when they all of them have young ones." It is on
record that he threatened to throw the culprit--a neighbouring farmer's
son--into the Nith to reward his inhumanity.
The ploughing is finished for the day, but the poet must now needs
betake himself to those official duties as an exciseman, which are
perhaps even less congenial to him than agricultural pursuits. He has
to cover some two hundred miles' riding every week; he is forced to
earn a scanty living for himself and his family, by incessant physical
and mental work. The iron has entered into his soul--here and there it
crops up in hard metallic outbursts: though for the most part, he is
unrivalled in spontaneous gaiety of song. And old sorrows come upon him
as he rides alone.... He considers the present time to be the happiest
of his life. He has an excellent wife, and bonnie bairns: friends many
and faithful: comparative immunity from financial troubles: a popularity
such as no other Scottish poet has attained; yet memories of the past
remain, which are never to be obliterated in oblivion. And chief among
these is the greatest sorrow that has befallen him--the loss of his one
true love, his cherished Highland Mary.
Ye banks and braes and streams around
The castle o' Montgomery!
Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,
Your waters never drumlie:
There Simmer first unfald her robes,
And there the langest tarry;
For there I took the last Farewell
O' my sweet Highland Mary.
How sweetly bloom'd the gay, green birk,
How rich the hawthorn's blossom,
As underneath their fragrant shade
I clasp'd her to my bosom!
The golden Hours on angel wings,
Flew o'er me and my Dearie;
For dear to me, as light and life,
Was my sweet Highland Mary.
* * * * *
O pale, pale now, those rosy lips,
I aft hae kiss'd sae fondly!
And clos'd for ay, the sparkling glance
That dwalt on me sae kindly!
And mouldering now in silent dust,
That heart that lo'ed me dearly!
But still within my bosom's core
Shall live my Highland Mary.
Burns has been an easy and inconstant lover all his days: devoted,
for the nonce, to every girl he met. But Mary was on a pinnacle
apart--unequalled, irreplaceable; and still he is continually dreaming
of her--dreaming in tender and melodious verse.
_Painting by Dudley Hardy._