Song, Composed in Spring
Tune—“Jockey’s Grey Breeks.”
Again rejoicing Nature seesHer robe assume its vernal hues:Her leafy locks wave in the breeze,All freshly steep’d in morning dews.
Chorus.—And maun I still on Menie doat,And bear the scorn that’s in her e’e?For it’s jet, jet black, an’ it’s like a hawk,An’ it winna let a body be.
In vain to me the cowslips blaw,In vain to me the vi’lets spring;In vain to me in glen or shaw,The mavis and the lintwhite sing.And maun I still, &c.
The merry ploughboy cheers his team,Wi’ joy the tentie seedsman stalks;But life to me’s a weary dream,A dream of ane that never wauks.And maun I still, &c.
The wanton coot the water skims,Amang the reeds the ducklings cry,The stately swan majestic swims,And ev’ry thing is blest but I.And maun I still, &c.
The sheep-herd steeks his faulding slap,And o’er the moorlands whistles shill:Wi’ wild, unequal, wand’ring step,I meet him on the dewy hill.And maun I still, &c.
And when the lark, ’tween light and dark,Blythe waukens by the daisy’s side,And mounts and sings on flittering wings,A woe-worn ghaist I hameward glide.And maun I still, &c.
Come winter, with thine angry howl,And raging, bend the naked tree;Thy gloom will soothe my cheerless soul,When nature all is sad like me!And maun I still, &c.
To A Mountain Daisy,
On turning down with the Plough, in April, 1786.
Wee, modest crimson-tipped flow’r,Thou’s met me in an evil hour;For I maun crush amang the stoureThy slender stem:To spare thee now is past my pow’r,Thou bonie gem.
Alas! it’s no thy neibor sweet,The bonie lark, companion meet,Bending thee ’mang the dewy weet,Wi’ spreckl’d breast!When upward-springing, blythe, to greetThe purpling east.
Cauld blew the bitter-biting northUpon thy early, humble birth;Yet cheerfully thou glinted forthAmid the storm,Scarce rear’d above the parent-earthThy tender form.
The flaunting flow’rs our gardens yield,High shelt’ring woods and wa’s maun shield;But thou, beneath the random bieldO’ clod or stane,Adorns the histie stibble field,Unseen, alane.
There, in thy scanty mantle clad,Thy snawie bosom sun-ward spread,Thou lifts thy unassuming headIn 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 laidLow i’ the dust.
Such is the fate of simple bard,On life’s rough ocean luckless starr’d!Unskilful he to note the cardOf prudent lore,Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,And whelm him o’er!
Such fate to suffering worth is giv’n,Who long with wants and woes has striv’n,By human pride or cunning driv’nTo 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 plough-share drives elate,Full on thy bloom,Till crush’d beneath the furrow’s weight,Shall be thy doom!