Scottish Poetry Selection
- To a Mountain Daisy
- On turning one down eith the plough, April 1786.

This poem was initially entitled "The Gowan" (the Scots word for daisy). Burns readily identifies with the plight of the destruction of the flower because he was feeling particularly despairing himself at the time as he was having a hard time with the Armour family - Jean Armour's father fainted when he heard that she was expecting Burns' child. Burns was contemplating emigrating to Jamaica. But it was shortly after this that the "Kilmarnock Edition" of his poems were published and were an instant success.


To a Mountain Daisy

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 neebor sweet,
The bonie 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!

Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate,
That fate is thine - no distant date;
Stern Ruin's plough-share drives elate,
Full on thy bloom,
Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight,
Shall be thy doom!

Meaning of unusual words:
stoure=dust
weet=wet
glinted=shone
maun=must
bield=shelter
histie=bare

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