fat cif 
fair, 
le seen; 
Our shri} 
branch, 
toon, 
vell 
2¢ they 
SY, 
PLOUGH, 
THE POETRY OF FLOWER? 
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: 
Yet 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 ; 
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 





