When smitten by the morning ray,
I see thee rise alert and gay,

Then, cheerful flower, my spirits play
With kindred gladness:

And when, at dusk, by dews opprest
Thou sink'st, the image of thy rest
Hath often eased my pensive breast
Of careful sadness.

And all day long I number yet,
All seasons through, another debt,
Which I, wherever thou art met,
To thee am owing;

An instinct call it, a blind sense,
A happy genial influence,

Coming one knows not how, nor whence,
Nor whither going.

In shoals, and bands, a morrice train,
Thou greet'st the traveller in the rain;
If welcomed once thou count'st it gain;
Thou art not daunted,

Nor carest if thou be set at nought;
And oft alone, in nooks remote,

We meet thee, like a pleasant thought,
When such are wanted.

When soothed awhile by milder airs,
Thee winter in a garland wears,

That thinly shades his few green hairs,
Spring cannot shun thee;

Whole summer fields are thine by sight,
And autumn, melancholy wight!
Doth in thy crimson head delight
When rains are on thee.

Child of the year! that round doth run
Thy course, bold lover of the sun,
And cheerful when the day's begun
As morning leveret,

Thy long-lost praise thou shalt regain;
Dear shalt thou be to future men,
As in old time; - thou not in vain
Art Nature's favourite!

WORDSWORTH.

TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY,

TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH, IN APRIL, 1786.

WEE, modest, crimson tipped 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,
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 reared above the parent earth
Thy tender form.

The flaunting flowers our gardens yield,
High sheltering woods and wa's maun shield;
But thou beneath the randome bield

O' clod or stane,

Adorns the histie stibble-field,

Unseen, alane.

There, in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snawy bosom sunward 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 betrayed,
And guileless trust,

Till she, like thee, all soiled is laid
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,

Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,
And whelm him o'er!

Such fate to suffering worth is given,
Who long with want and woes has striven,
By human pride or cunning driven

To misery's brink,

Till wrenched of every stay, but Heaven,
He, ruined, sink!

Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate,
That fate is thine - no distant date;
Stern ruin's plough-share drives, elate,
Full on thy bloom,

Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight,
Shall be thy doom!

BURNS.

TO A FIELD FLOWER.

ON FINDING ONE IN FULL BLOOM ON CHRISTMAS-DAY, 1803.

THERE is a flower, a little flower,
With silver crest and golden eye,
That welcomes every changing hour,
. And weathers every sky.

The prouder beauties of the field

In gay but quick succession shine, Race after race their honours yield, They flourish and decline.

But this small flower, to nature dear,

While moon and stars their courses run, Wreathes the whole circle of the year, Companion of the sun.

It smiles upon the lap of May,

To sultry August spreads its charms, Lights pale October on his way,

And twines December's arms.

The purple heath, and golden broom,

On moory mountains catch the gale,
O'er lawns the lily sheds perfume,
The violet in the vale.