Ilf 
THE POETRY OF FLOWERS 
Alas! it’s no thy neebour sweet, 
The bonnie lark, companion meet! 
Bending thee ’mang the dewy weet! 
Wi’ speckled breast, 
When upward springing, blithe, to greet 
The purplin’ east. 
Cauld blew the bitter biting north 
Upon thy early, humble birth : 
Vet cheerfully thou glinted forth 
Amid the storm, 
Scarce rear’d above the parent earth, 
Thy tender form. 
The flaunting flowers our gardens yield, 
High sheltering woods and wa’s maun shield j 
But thou, beneath the random bield 
O’ clod or stane, 
Adorns the histie stibble-field, 
Unseen, alane. 
There, in thy scanty mantle clad, 
Thy snowy 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 ' 
8 
