Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume V. Nature. 1904. | | | | V. Trees: Flowers: Plants | | To a Mountain Daisy | | Robert Burns (1759–1796) |
| | On Turning One Down with the Plough in April, 1786 |
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WEE, modest, crimson-tippèd flower, | |
| Thou ’s met me in an evil hour, | |
| For I maun crush amang the stoure | |
| Thy slender stem; | |
| To spare thee now is past my power, | 5 |
| Thou bonny gem. | |
| |
| Alas! it ’s no thy neebor sweet, | |
| The bonnie lark, companion meet, | |
| Bending thee ’mang the dewy weet, | |
| Wi’ spreckled breast, | 10 |
| 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 | 15 |
| Amid the storm, | |
| Scarce reared above the parent earth | |
| Thy tender form. | |
| |
| The flaunting flowers our gardens yield | |
| High sheltering woods and wa’s maun shield: | 20 |
| But thou beneath the random bield | |
| O’ clod or stane, | |
| Adorns the histie stibble-fleld, | |
| Unseen, alane. | |
| |
| There, in thy scanty mantle clad, | 25 |
| Thy snawie bosom sunward spread, | |
| Thou lifts thy unassuming head | |
| In humble guise; | |
| But now the share uptears thy bed, | |
| And low thou lies! | 30 |
| |
| Such is the fate of artless maid, | |
| Sweet floweret of the rural shade! | |
| By love’s simplicity betrayed, | |
| And guileless trust, | |
| Till she, like thee, all soiled, is laid | 35 |
| 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, | 40 |
| 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 | 45 |
| To misery’s brink, | |
| Till, wrenched of every stay but Heaven, | |
| He, ruined, sink! | |
| |
| Even thou who mourn’st the daisy’s fate, | |
| That fate is thine,—no distant date: | 50 |
| Stern Ruin’s ploughshare drives, elate, | |
| Full on thy bloom, | |
| Till crushed beneath the furrow’s weight | |
| Shall be thy doom! | | | |
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