5

10

II. TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY.

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

1. Wee, modest, crimson-tippéd flow'r,
Thou's met me in an evil hour;

For I maun crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem.

4. The flaunting flowers our gardens yield,
High sheltering woods an' wa's maun shield;
But thou, beneath the random bjeld

O' clod or stane,

Adorns the histie stibble-field,

Unseen, alane.

5. There, in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snawie bosom sunward spread,

15

NOTES.-3. maun, must.—stoure, dust.

9. weet, wet.

15. glinted, glanced, peeped.

20. wa's, walls.

21. bield, shelter.
23. Adorns=

adorn'st.-histie, dry.

20

25

8. 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!

9. 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.

27 lifts lift'st.

=

39. card, compass.

35

40

III. FOR A' THAT, AND A' THAT.

I. Is there for honest poverty

That hangs his head, and a' that?
The coward slave, we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a that!
For a' that, and a' that,

Our toils obscure, and a' that;
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man's the gowd for a' that.

2. What though on hamely fare we dine,

Wear hoddin-grey, and a' that;

Gie folks their silks, and knaves their wine,
A man's a man for a' that.

For a' that, and a' that,

Their tinsel show, and a' that;

The honest man, though e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men for a' that.

3. Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord,
Wha struts, and stares, and a' that;
Though hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a coof for a' that;

For a' that, and a' that,

His riband, star, and a' that;
The man of independent mind,

He looks and laughs at a' that.

4. A prince can mak' a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and a' that;
But an honest man 's aboon his might,
Guid faith, he mauna fa' that!

NOTES.-8. gowd, gold.

10. hoddin-grey,woollen cloth of a coarse quality.

II. Gie = give.

17. birkie, a forward, conceited fel

low.

20. coof, a blockhead.

28. fa' that, try that.

Win Wordsworth

CHARACTERIZATION BY LOWELL.'

1. It cannot be denied that in Wordsworth the very highest powers of the poetic mind were associated with a certain tendency to the diffuse and commonplace. It is in the understand