Ralph Waldo Emerson, comp. (1803–1882). Parnassus: An Anthology of Poetry. 1880.
To a Mountain DaisyRobert Burns (17591796)
W
Thou’s met me in an evil hour;
For I maun crush amang the stoure
To spare thee now is past my power,
The bonnie lark, companion meet!
Bending thee ’mang the dewy weet!
When upward-springing, blythe, to greet
Upon thy early, humble birth;
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
Scarce reared above the parent-earth
High sheltering woods and wa’s maun shield;
But thou, beneath the random bield
Adorns the histie stibble-field,
Thy snawy bosom sunward spread,
Thou lifts thy unassuming head
But now the share uptears thy bed,
Sweet floweret of the rural shade!
By love’s simplicity betrayed,
Till she, like thee, all soiled, is laid
On life’s rough ocean luckless starred!
Unskilful he to note the card
Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,
Who long with wants and woes has striven,
By human pride or cunning driven
Till, wrenched of every stay but Heaven,
That fate is thine—no distant date;
Stern Ruin’s ploughshare drives, elate,
Till crushed beneath the furrow’s weight