Wee, modest crimson-tipped flow’r,
Thou’s met me in anevil hour;
For I maun crush amangthe stoure
Thy slender stem:
To spare thee now is past my pow’r,
Thou bonie gem.
Alas! it’s nothy neiborsweet,
The bonielark, companion meet,
Bending thee ‘mang the dewy weet,
Wi’spreckl’d breast!
When upward-springing, blythe, to greet
The purpling east.
Cauldblew 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.
The flaunting flow’rs our gardens yield,
High shelt’ring woods and wa’s maunshield;
But thou, beneath the random bield
O’clod or stane,
Adorns the histiestibblefield,
Unseen, alane.
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!
Such is the fate of artless maid,
Sweet flow’ret of the rural shade!
By love’s simplicity betray’d,
And guileless trust;
Till she, like thee, all soil’d, is laid
Lowi’the dust.
Such is the fate of simple bard,
On life’s rough ocean luckless starr’d!
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 worthis giv’n,
Who long with wants and woes has striv’n,
Byhuman pride orcunning driv’n
To mis’ry’s brink;
Till wrench’d of ev’ry stay butHeav’n,
He, ruin’d, 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,
Tillcrush’d beneath the furrow’s weight,
Shall be thy doom!