TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY
ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH, APRIL, 1786

by: Robert Burns (1759-1796)

      I
       
      EE, modest, crimson-tippèd flow'r,
      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 pow'r,
      Thou bonie gem.
       
      II
       
      Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet,
      The bonie lark, companion meet,
      Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet!
      Wi' spreckl'd breast!
      When upward-springing, blythe, to greet
      The purpling east.
       
      III
       
      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.
       
      IV
       
      The flaunting flow'rs our gardens yield,
      High shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield;
      But thou, beneath the random bield
      O' clod or stane,
      Adorns the histie stibble-field,
      Unseen, alane.
       
      V
       
      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!
       
      VI
       
      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
      Low i' the dust.
       
      VII
       
      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!
       
      VIII
       
      Such fate to suffering Worth is giv'n,
      Who long with wants and woes has striv'n,
      By human pride or cunning driv'n
      To mis'ry's brink;
      Till, wrench'd of ev'ry stay but Heav'n,
      He, ruin'd, sink!
       
      IX
       
      Ev'n 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 by thy doom!

"To a Mountain Daisy" is reprinted from English Poems. Ed. Edward Chauncey Baldwin & Harry G. Paul. New York: American Book Company, 1908.

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