ERRATA. Page 6, line 1, after from zone read to zone. Page 235, line 26, for the glorious read thy glorious. PART I. PRAYER FOR DIVINE AID. BY MERRICK. AUTHOR of Good! to thee I turn : THE WISH. BY MERRICK. How short is life's uncertain space! How swift the wild precarious chase! Youth stops at first its wilful ears To wisdom's prudent voice; Till now arrived at riper years, Experienced age, worn out with cares, Repents its earlier choice. What though its prospects now appear So pleasing and refin'd; Yet groundless hope, and anxious fear, By turns the busy moments share, And prey upon the mind. B Since then false joys our fancy cheat Ye guardian pow'rs that rule my fate, Is all compris'd in this. May I through life's uncertain tide, But should your providence divine May all those blessings you design, ROBERT BURNS.-BORN 1753; DIED 1796. TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY. ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH. WEE, modest, crimson-tipped flower, Thy slender stem, To spare thee now is past my power, Thou bonnie gem. Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet, Wi' spreckled breast, When upward springing, blithe to greet The purpling east. Cauld blew the bitter-biting north Amid the storm, Scarce reared above the parent earth Thy tender form. The flaunting flowers our gardens yield, O' clod or stane, Adorns the histie stibble-field Unseen, alane. There, in thy scanty mantle clad, In humble guise: But now the share uptears thy bed, And low thou lies. Such fate to suffering worth is given, To misery's brink, Till, wrenched of every stay but Heaven, He, ruined, sink! Even thou who mourn'st the daisy's fate, Full on thy bloom, Till, crushed beneath the furrow's weight, Shall be thy doom. |