TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY, ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH, IN APRIL, 1786.1 WEE, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r, For I maun crush amang the stoure Thy slender stem: To spare thee now is past my pow'r, Thou bonnie gem. Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet, Wi' spreckl'd breast, When upward-springing, blythe, to greet The purpling east. Cauld blew the bitter-biting north Amid the storm, Scarce rear'd above the parent-earth Thy tender form. The flaunting flow'rs our gardens yield, O' clod, or stane, Adorns the histie1 stibble-field, Unseen, alane. There, in thy scanty mantle clad, In humble guise; But now the share uptears thy bed, And low thou lies! Such is the fate of artless Maid, Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade! By love's simplicity betray'd, And guileless trust, Low i' the dust. Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid 1 The Daisy grew in the field next to that in which the plough had turned up the mouse's nest. 2 I have seldom met with an image more truly pastoral than that of the lark in the second stanza. Such strokes as these mark the pencil of the poet, which delineates Nature with the precision of intimacy, yet with the delicate colouring of beauty and taste.-H. MACKENZIE, in "The Lounger," No. 97. 4 Dry. 3 Shelter. Such is the fate of simple Bard, Till billows rage, and gales blow hard, Such fate to suffering worth is giv'n, To mis'ry's brink, Till, wrench'd of ev'ry stay but Heav'n, Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate, Full on thy bloom, Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight, Shall be thy doom! TO RUIN.1 ALL hail! inexorable lord! At whose destruction-breathing word, With stern-resolv'd, despairing eye, For one has cut my dearest tie, Then low'ring, and pouring, And thou grim pow'r, by life abhorr'd, I have here enclosed a small piece, the very latest of my productions. I am a good deal pleased with some sentiments myself, as they are just the native querulous feelings of a heart which, as the elegantly melting Gray says, "Melancholy has marked for her own."-To Mr. Kennedy, April 20, 1786. When shall my soul, in silent peace, My weary heart its throbbing cease, Within thy cold embrace! TO MISS LOGAN, WITH BEATTIE'S POEMS, AS A NEW YEAR'S GIFT, JANUARY 1, 1787. AGAIN the silent wheels of time Their annual round have driv'n, No gifts have I from Indian coasts I send you more than India boasts, Our sex with guile and faithless love prove EPISTLE TO A YOUNG FRIEND.1 I LANG hae thought, my youthfu' friend, But how the subject-theme may gang, Ye'll try the world soon, my lad, 1 Andrew Aiken, of Ayr, son of the friend to whom Burns inscribed "The Cotter's Saturday Night." 1 Who. For care and trouble set your thought, I'll no say, men are villains a'; Wha hae nae check but human law, But, Och! mankind are unco weak, If self the wavering balance shake, Yet they wha' fa'2 in fortune's strife, But never tempt th' illicit rove, To catch dame Fortune's golden smile, And gather gear by ev'ry wile 2 Fall. 3 Poverty. + Off-hand. 5 Peep. 6 Flame. |