Wee, modest, crimson tipped flow'r,
Thou's met me in an evil hour,
For I maun[080] crush amang the stoure[081]
Thy slender stem,
To spare thee now is past my pow'r,
Thou bonnie gem.
Alas! its no thy neobor sweet,
The bonnie lark, companion meet,
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet[082]
Wi' speckled breast,
When upward springing, blythe, to greet
The purpling east
Cauld blew the bitter biting north
Upon thy early, humble, birth,
Yet cheerfully thou glinted[083] forth
Amid the storm,
Scarce reared above the patient earth
Thy tender form
The flaunting flowers our gardens yield,
High sheltering woods and wa's[084] maun shield,
But thou beneath the random bield[085]
O' clod or stane,
Adorns the histie[086] stibble field[087]
Unseen, alane.
There, in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snawye bosom sun ward spread,
Thou lifts thy unassuming head
In humble guise,
But now the share up tears thy bed,
And low thou lies!
Such is the fate of artless Maid,
Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade!
By love's simplicity betrayed,
And guileless trust,
Till she, like thee, all soiled is laid
Low i' the dust.
Such is the fate of simple Bard,
On Life's rough ocean luckless starred!
Unskilful he to note the card
Of prudent lore,
Till billows rage, and gales blow hard
And whelm him o'er!
Such fate to suffering worth is given
Who long with wants and woes has striven
By human pride or cunning driven
To misery's brink,
Till wrenched of every stay but Heaven,
He, ruined, sink!
Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate,
That fate is thine--no distant date;
Stern Ruin's plough-share drives elate,
Full on thy bloom;
Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight
Shall be thy doom.
_Burns._
The following verses though they make no pretension to the strength and
pathos of the poem by the great Scottish Peasant, have a grace and
simplicity of their own, for which they have long been deservedly
popular.