Роберт БёрнсTO A MOUNTAIN DAISY, ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOW IN APRIL, 1786К ПОЛЕВОЙ МАРГАРИТКЕ, НЕЧАЯННО СРЕЗАННОЙ В АПРЕЛЕ 1786 Г.

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 neebor 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.

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 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!

Such fate to suffering worth is given,
Who long with wants and woes has striven,
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 plowshare drives, elate,
⁠Full on thy bloom,
Till crashed beneath the furrow's weight
⁠Shall be thy doom.