Can harbor, dark, the selfish aim,
To bless himself alone!
Mark maiden-innocence a prey
To love-pretending snares,
This boasted honor turns away,
Shunning soft pity's rising sway,
Regardless of the tears, and unavailing pray'rs !
Perhaps this hour, in mis'ry's squalid nest,

She strains your infant to her joyless breast,
And with a mother's fears shrinks at the rocking blast!

"Oh ye! who, sunk in beds of down,
Feel not a want but what yourselves create,
Think, for a moment, on his wretched fate,

Whom friends and fortune quite disown! Ill-satisfied keen nature's clam'rous call,

Stretch'd on his straw he lays himself to sleep, While thro' the ragged roof and chinky wall,

Chill o'er his slumbers, piles the drifty heap! Think on the dungeon's grim confine, Where guilt and poor misfortune pine! Guilt, erring man, relenting view! But shall thy legal rage pursue The wretch, already crushèd low, By cruel fortune's undeservèd blow?

Affliction's sons are brothers in distress;
A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss!"

I heard nae mair, for Chanticleer
Shook off the pouthery snaw,

And hail'd the morning with a cheer,
A cottage-rousing craw.

But deep this truth impress'd my mind
Thro' all His works abroad,

The heart benevolent and kind
The most resembles God.

WINTER

A DIRGE

THE wintry west extends his blast,
And hail and rain does blaw;

Or the stormy north sends driving forth

The blinding sleet and snaw:

While, tumbling brown, the burn comes down, And roars frae bank to brae:

And bird and beast in covert rest,
And pass the heartless day.

"The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast," The joyless winter day,

Let others fear, to me more dear

Than all the pride of May:

The tempest's howl, it soothes my soul,
My griefs it seems to join;

The leafless trees my fancy please,

Their fate resembles mine!

Thou Pow'r Supreme, whose mighty scheme
These woes of mine fulfil,

Here, firm, I rest, they must be best,
Because they are Thy will!

Then all I want (Oh! do thou grant
This one request of mine!)
Since to enjoy thou dost deny,
Assist me to resign.

TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY

ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH, IN APRIL, 1786

WEE, modest, crimson-tippèd flow'r,
Thou's met me in an evil hour;

For I maun crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem.

To spare thee now is past my pow'r,
Thou bonie gem.

Alas! it's no thy neibor sweet,
The bonnie lark, companion meet!
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet!
Wi' spreckl'd breast,

When upward-springing, blythe, to greet
The purpling 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 flow'rs our gardens yield,
High shelt'ring 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 snawie bosom sun-ward 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 flow'ret of the rural shade!
By love's simplicity betray'd,
And guileless trust,

Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid
Low i' the dust.

Such is the fate of simple bard,
On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd!
Unskilful he to note the card'
Of 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’n

To mis'ry's brink,

Till wrench'd of ev'ry stay but Heav'n,
He, ruin'd, sink!