Till some bit callan bring me news
That you are there;

And if we dinna haud a bouze,

I'se ne'er drink mair.

It's no I like to sit and swallow,

Then like a swine to puke and wallow;
But gie me just a true guid fallow,

Wi' right engine,

boy

hold

temper - genius

And spunkie, ance to make us mellow, lively And then we'll shine.

Now, if ye're ane o' warld's folk,
Wha rate the wearer by the cloak,
And sklent on poverty their joke,

Wi' bitter sneer,

Wi' you no friendship will I troke,
Nor cheap nor dear.

But if, as I'm informèd weel,
Ye hate, as ill's the very deil,

The flinty heart that canna feel,

Come, sir, here's tae you!

glance

exchange

Hae, there's my han', I wiss you weel,

And guid be wi' you!

R. B.

INSCRIBED ON THE BLANK-LEAF OF A COPY OF MISS HANNAH MORE'S WORKS, PRESENTED BY THE AUTHOR.

3d April, 1786.

THOU flattering mark of friendship kind,
Still may thy pages call to mind
The dear, the beauteous Donor:
Though sweetly female every part,
Yet such a head, and more the heart,
Does both the sexes honour.

She shewed her taste refined and just
When she selected thee,

Yet deviating own I must,

In sae approving me;

But kind still, I'll mind still

The Giver in the gift
I'll bless her, and wiss her

A friend aboon the lift.

above the sky

TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY,

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

The title of this piece was originally The Gowan: the English appellation was subsequently adopted.

WEE, modest, crimson-tippèd flower,
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 power,
Thou bonny gem.

Alas! it's no thy neibor sweet,
The bonny lark, companion meet,
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet,

Wi' speckled breast,

When upward-springing, blithe, 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 reared above the parent earth
Thy tender form.

dust

peeped

The flaunting flowers our gardens yield,

High sheltering woods and wa's maun shield But thou, beneath the random bield protection O' clod or stane,

Adorns the histie stibble-field,

Unseen, alane.

There, in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snawie 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!
By love's simplicity betrayed,

And guileless trust,

Till she, like thee, all soiled, 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!

dry

Such fate to suffering worth is given,
Who long with wants and woes bas striven

VOL. I.

17

By human pride or cunning driven

To misery's brink,

Till wrenched of every stay but Heaven,
He, ruined, sink!

Even thou who, mourn'st the Daisy's fate,
That fate is thine - no distant date;
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate,
Full on thy bloom,

Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight,
Shall be thy doom.

LAMENT,

OCCASIONED BY THE UNFORTUNATE ISSUE OF A FRIEND'S AMOUR.

"Alas! how oft does goodness wound itself,

And sweet affection prove the spring of woe!"-HOME

When it appeared, in the spring of 1786, that the love between the poet and Jean Armour had become transgression, Burns and his brother were beginning to fear that their farm would prove a ruinous concern. He yielded, nevertheless, to the wish of his unhappy partner to acknowledge her as his wife, and thus repair as far as possible the consequences of their error. He gave her such an acknowledgment in writing—a doeument sufficient in the law of Scotland to constitute what is called an irregular, though perfectly valid