Though woodbines flaunt and roses glow Thou need'st not be ashamed to show For dull the eye, the heart is dull, Thy tender blossoms are ! How rich thy branchy stem! While silent showers are falling slow, But thou, wild bramble! back dost bring, The fresh green days of life's fair spring, Scorned bramble of the brake! once more To gad with thee the woodlands o'er, In freedom and in joy. ELLIOTT. MOUNTAIN GORSES. MOUNTAIN gorses, ever-golden, Up the hill-side of this life, as bleak as where ye grow? Fair crocuses and snowdrops, W. S. PASSMORE. TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY.* ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH IN APRIL, 1786. WEE, modest, crimson-tippèd flower, To spare thee now is past my power, Alas! it's no thy neibor sweet, When upward springing, blithe, to greet Cauld blew the bitter-biting north Amid the storm, Scarce rear'd above the parent earth Thy tender form. ་་ * Mr. Chambers says 'The Mountain Daisy" was composed, as the poet has related, at the plough. The field where he crushed the "Wee, modest, crimson-tippèd flower," lies next to that in which he turned up the nest of the mouse, and both are on the farm of Mossgiel, and still shown to anxious inquirers by the neighbouring peasantry.' + Peeped. + Dust. The flaunting flowers our gardens yield, O' clod or stane, Adorns the histief stibble-field, Unseen, alane. There, in thy scanty mantle clad, But now the share uptears thy bed, Such is the fate of artless maid, And guileless trust, Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid Such is the fate of simple bard, Of prudent lore, Till billows rage, and gales blow hard, Such fate to suffering worth is given, To misery's brink, Till, wrench'd of every stay but Heaven Even thou who mourn'st the daisy's fate, Till, crush'd beneath the furrow's weight, Shall be thy doorn! BURNS. * Shelter. † Barren. THE DAISY. I'D choose to be a daisy, if I might be a flower, I'd choose to be a daisy, &c. I love the gentle lily, it looks so meek and fair, TO THE SMALL CELANDINE.* PANSIES, lilies, kingcups, daisies, They will have a place in story: Eyes of some men travel far Up and down the heavens they go— I'm as great as they, I trow, Since the day I found thee out, Little flower!-I'll make a stir, Like a sage astronomer. Modest, yet withal an elf, Bold, and lavish of thyself; Since we needs must first have met Common pilewort. Thirty years or more, and yet Ere a leaf is on a bush, In the time before the thrush Poets, vain men in their mood! Never heed them; I aver That they all are wanton wooers; But the thrifty cottager, Who stirs little out of doors, Joys to spy thee near her home; Spring is coming, thou art come! Comfort have thou of thy merit, But 'tis good enough for thee. Ill befall the yellow flowers, They have done as worldlings do, Taken praise that should be thine, Little, humble celandine ! |