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Though woodbines flaunt and roses glow
O'er all the fragrant bowers,

Thou need'st not be ashamed to show
Thy satin-threaded flowers.

For dull the eye, the heart is dull,
That cannot feel how fair,
Amid all beauty, beautiful

Thy tender blossoms are !
How delicate thy gauzy frill!

How rich thy branchy stem!
How soft thy voice when woods are still,
And thou sing'st hymns to them!

While silent showers are falling slow,
And, 'mid the general hush,
A sweet air lifts the little bough,
Lone whispering through the bush!
The primrose to the grave is gone;
The hawthorn-flower is dead;
The violet by the mossed grey stone
Hath laid her weary head;

But thou, wild bramble! back dost bring,
In all their beauteous power,

The fresh green days of life's fair spring,
And boyhood's blossomy hour.

Scorned bramble of the brake! once more
Thou bidd'st me be a boy,

To gad with thee the woodlands o'er,

In freedom and in joy.

ELLIOTT.

MOUNTAIN GORSES.

MOUNTAIN gorses, ever-golden,
Cankered not the whole year long!
Do ye teach us to be strong,
Howsoever pricked and holden
Like your thorny blooms, and so
Trodden on by rain and snow,

Up the hill-side of this life, as bleak as where ye grow?

Fair crocuses and snowdrops,
Whene'er the zephyr swells,
Sound, sound your golden trumpets,
And strike your silver bells.
Bid all your sister blossoms
Awake your joys to share,
And join with merry welcome
To hail the new-born year.

W. S. PASSMORE.

TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY.*

ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH

IN APRIL, 1786.

WEE, modest, crimson-tippèd flower,
Thou's met me in an evil hour;
For I maun crush amang the stouret
Thy slender stem :

To spare thee now is past my power,
Thou bonny gem.

Alas! it's no thy neibor sweet,
The bonny lark, companion meet,
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet,
Wi' speckled 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.

་་

* 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,
High sheltering woods and wa's maun shield;
But thou beneath the random bield*

O' clod or stane,

Adorns the histief stibble-field,

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 floweret of the rural shade!
By love's simplicity betray'd,

And guileless trust,

Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid
Low i' 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 worth is given,
Who long with wants and woes has striven,
By human pride or cunning driven

To misery's brink,

Till, wrench'd of every stay but Heaven
He, ruin'd, sink !

Even 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 doorn!

BURNS.

* Shelter.

† Barren.

THE DAISY.

I'D choose to be a daisy, if I might be a flower,
My petals closing softly at twilight's silent hour;
And waking in the morning, when falls the early dew,
To welcome heaven's bright sunshine, and heaven's
bright tear-drop too.

I'd choose to be a daisy, &c.

I love the gentle lily, it looks so meek and fair,
But daisies I love better, for they grow everywhere;
The lilies bloom so sadly, in sunshine or in shower,
But daisies still look upward, however dark the hour.
I'd choose to be a daisy, &c.
FREDERICK BUCKLEY.

TO THE SMALL CELANDINE.*

PANSIES, lilies, kingcups, daisies,
Let them live upon their praises;
Long as there's a sun that sets,
Primroses will have their glory;
Long as there are violets,

They will have a place in story:
There's a flower that shall be mine,
'Tis the little celandine.

Eyes of some men travel far
For the finding of a star;

Up and down the heavens they go—
Men that keep a mighty rout!

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
I have seen thee, high and low,

Common pilewort.

Thirty years or more, and yet
'Twas a face I did not know,
Thou hast now, go where I may,
Fifty greetings in a day.

Ere a leaf is on a bush,

In the time before the thrush
Has a thought about her nest,
Thou wilt come with half a call,
Spreading out thy glossy breast
Like a careless prodigal ;
Telling tales about the sun,
When we've little warmth, or none.

Poets, vain men in their mood!
Travel with the multitude:

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,
Kindly, unassuming spirit!
Careless of thy neighbourhood,
Thou dost show thy pleasant face
On the moor, and in the wood,
In the lane;-there's not a place,
Howsoever mean it be,

But 'tis good enough for thee.

Ill befall the yellow flowers,
Children of the flaring hours!
Buttercups, that will be seen,
Whether we will see or know;
Others, too, of lofty mien ;

They have done as worldlings do, Taken praise that should be thine, Little, humble celandine !

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