When down it rolls, and at the bottom lies, CRABBE. FROM "THE COTTAR'S SATURDAY NIGHT." Ar length his lonely cot appears in view, Beneath the shelter of an aged tree; Th' expectant wee things, toddlin', stacher thro', To meet their dad, wi' flichterin' noise an' glee. His wee bit ingle, blinkin' bonnily, His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie's smile, The lisping infant prattling on his knee, Does a' his weary carking cares beguile, An' makes him quite forget his labour and his toil. Belyve the elder bairns come drapping in, At service out, among the farmers roun'; In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, Come hame perhaps to show her braw new gown, Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee, To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. Wi' joy unfeigned brothers and sisters meet, The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years; Anticipation forwards points the view. The mother, wi' her needle an' her shears, Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new; The father mixes a' wi' admonition due. The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, The big ha' Bible, ance his father's pride: ; His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare; Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glideHe wales a portion with judicious care; And, “Let us worship GOD!" he says with solemn air They chant their artless notes in simple guise; The tickled ears no heartfelt raptures raise; The priest-like father reads the sacred page, With Amalek's ungracious progeny; Or how the royal bard did groaning lie Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire; Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry; Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire; Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; How He, who bore in heaven the second name, Had not on earth whereon to lay his head: How His first followers and servants sped: The precepts sage they wrote to many a land : How he, who lone in Patmos banished, Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand, [command. And heard great Babylon's doom pronounced by Heaven's Then kneeling down to HEAVEN'S ETERNAL KING, No more to sigh or shed the bitter tear; In such society, yet still more dear; While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere. * Then homeward all take off their several way; The youngling cottagers retire to rest; The parent pair their secret homage pay, And proffer up to Heaven the warm request, That He who stills the raven's clamorous nest, And decks the lily fair in flowery pride, Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best, For them and for their little ones provide; But, chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside. BURNS. TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY. ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH. WEE modest crimson-tipped flower, For I maun crush amang the stour To spare thee now is past my power, Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet, When upward springing, blythe to greet Cauld blew the bitter biting north Upon thy early, humble birth; Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth Scarce reared above the parent earth The flaunting flowers our gardens yield, O' clod or stane, Adorns't the histie stibble-field, There, in thy scanty mantle clad, Thy snowy bosom sunward spread, Thou lift'st thy unassuming head But now the share uptears thy bed, Such is the fate of artless maid, Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade! Till she, like thee, all soiled, is laid Such is the fate of simple bard, On life's rough ocean luckless starred! Till billows rage, and gales blow hard, Such fate to suffering worth is given, Till, wrenched of every stay but Heaven, Even thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate, Full on thy bloom, Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight Shall be thy doom! BURNS. |