The Wounded Hare
Inhuman man! curse on thy barb’rous art,And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye;May never pity soothe thee with a sigh,Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart!
Go live, poor wand’rer of the wood and field!The bitter little that of life remains:No more the thickening brakes and verdant plainsTo thee a home, or food, or pastime yield.
Seek, mangled wretch, some place of wonted rest,No more of rest, but now thy dying bed!The sheltering rushes whistling o’er thy head,The cold earth with thy bloody bosom prest.
Perhaps a mother’s anguish adds its woe;The playful pair crowd fondly by thy side;Ah! helpless nurslings, who will now provideThat life a mother only can bestow!
Oft as by winding Nith I, musing, waitThe sober eve, or hail the cheerful dawn,I’ll miss thee sporting o’er the dewy lawn,And curse the ruffian’s aim, and mourn thy hapless fate.
Delia, An Ode
“To the Editor of The Star.—Mr. Printer—If the productions of a simple ploughman can merit a place in the same paper with Sylvester Otway, and the other favourites of the Muses who illuminate the Star with the lustre of genius, your insertion of the enclosed trifle will be succeeded by future communications from—Yours, &c., R. Burns.
Ellisland, near Dumfries, 18th May, 1789.”
Fair the face of orient day,Fair the tints of op’ning rose;But fairer still my Delia dawns,More lovely far her beauty shows.
Sweet the lark’s wild warbled lay,Sweet the tinkling rill to hear;But, Delia, more delightful still,Steal thine accents on mine ear.
The flower-enamour’d busy beeThe rosy banquet loves to sip;Sweet the streamlet’s limpid lapseTo the sun-brown’d Arab’s lip.
But, Delia, on thy balmy lipsLet me, no vagrant insect, rove;O let me steal one liquid kiss,For Oh! my soul is parch’d with love.