ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 
I 2 I 
TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY, 
ON TURNING IT DOWN WITH A PLOW. 
W EE, modest, crimson-tipped flower, 
Thou’s met me in an evil hour ; 
For I maun crush amang the stoure 1 
Thy slender stem: 
To spare thee now is past my power, 
Thou bonnie gem ! 
Alas, it’s not thy neebor sweet, 
The bonnie lark, companion meet! 
Bending the ’mang the dewy weet, 
Wi’ speckled breast, 
When upward springing, blithe, to greet 
The purpling east. 
Cauld blew the bitter, biting north 
Upon thy early, humble birth; 
Yet cheerfully thou glinted 2 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 random bield 3 
O’ clod or stane. 
Adorns the histie 4 stibble-field, 
Unseen, alane. 
There, in thy scanty mantle clad, 
Thy snawie 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 simple bard, 
On life’s rough ocean luckless starr’d! 
Unskillful he to note the c^ird 
Of prudent lore, 
Till billows rage, and gales blow hard, 
And whelm him o’er. 
. Dust. 2. Peeped. 3. Shelter. 4. Dry. 
