TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY, CRUSHED BY A PLOUGH.

WEE, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r,
Thou'st 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 bonnie gem.

Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet,
The bonnie lark, companion meet!
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet!

Wi' speckled breast,

When upward-springing, blythe, 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.

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,

Adorn'st the histie stibble-field,

Unseen, alane.

There, in thy scanty mantle clad,

Thy snawie bosom sun-ward spread,

Thou lift'st 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

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 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!

Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate,
That fate is thine-no distant date;
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate,

Full in thy bloom,

Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight,

Shall be thy doom!

BURNS.

COMFORT, like the golden sun,

Dispels the sullen shade with her sweet influence, And cheers the melancholy house of care.

ROWE.

NEVER slave

Could yet so highly offend, but tyranny,

In torturing him, would make him worth lamenting.

BEN JONSON.

TELL me not of it, friend-when the young weep,
Their tears are lukewarm brine ;-from our old eyes
Sorrow falls down like hail drops from the north,
Chilling the furrows of our wither'd cheeks,
Cold as our hopes, and harden'd as our feeling :
Theirs, as they fall, sink sightless-ours recoil,
Heap the fair plain, and bleaken all before us.

As the fond bird, through night and morn,
Still flutters round the rifled nest,
And loves the scene, though now forlorn,
Where once her brooding heart was bless'd;

So do I love to hover here,

Where dreams of bliss I once enjoy'd,
And haunt the spot, though fate severe
Has all my brood of hope destroy'd.

CAN public trust,

O reverend sage! destroy the softer ties
That twine about the parent's yearning heart,—
That holy passion Heav'n itself infus'd,

And blended with the stream that feeds our life?

MALLET.

LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP.

LOVE is like the shadow, seen

When the sun first lights the skies,
Stretching then o'er all the green,

But dwindling as each moment flies.
Friendship is the shadow thrown,
When the day its noon hath past,
Increasing as Life's sun goes down,
Ev'n till it has look'd its last.

I SAW her upon nearer view,
A spirit, yet a woman too!

Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty;

A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet:
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food:
For transient sorrow, simple wiles,

Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

THE VANITY OF FAME.

As vapours from the marsh's miry bed
Ascend, and gathering on the mountain head
Spread their long train in splendid pomp on high;
Now o'er the vales in awful grandeur lour,

Now flashing, thundering down the trembling sky,
Rive the rough oak, or dash th' aspiring tower :
Then, melting down in rain,

Drop to their base original again;

Thus earth-born heroes, the proud sons of praise,
Awhile on Fortune's airy summit blaze,
The world's fair peace confound,

And deal dismay and death and ruin round.
Then back to earth these idols of an hour
Sink on a sudden, and are known no more.

Where is each boasted favourite of Fame,
Whose wide expanded name

Fill'd the loud echoes of the world around,
While shore to shore return'd the lengthen'd sound?
The warriors where, who, in triumphal pride,

With weeping Freedom to the chariot tied,

To glory's Capitolian temple rode ?

In undistinguish'd dust together trod,

Victors and vanquish'd mingle in the grave;
Worms prey upon the mouldering god,
Nor know a Cæsar from his slave;
In empty air their mighty deeds exhale,
A schoolboy's wonder, or an evening tale.