If appetite, or what divines call lust, Which men comply with, even because they must, Be punished with perdition, who is pure? Then theirs, no doubt, as well as mine, is sure. If sentence of eternal pain belong To every sudden slip and transient wrong, My creed is, he is safe that does his best, A hand as liberal as the light of day. The soldier thus endowed, who never shrinks And differing judgments serve but to declare That truth lies somewhere, if we knew but where. Of all it ever was my lot to read, Of critics now alive, or long since dead, The book of all the world that pleased me most The writer well remarks, a heart that knows I waive just now, for conversation's sake.'- BOADICEA. AN ODE. WHE HEN the British warrior queen, Counsel of her country's gods, Sage beneath a spreading oak 'Princess! if our aged eyes Weep upon thy matchless wrongs, 'Tis because resentment ties All the terrors of our tongues. 'Rome shall perish-write that word In the blood that she has spilt; Perish hopeless and abhorred, Deep in ruin as in guilt. 'Rome, for empire far renowned, 'Other Romans shall arise, Heedless of a soldier's name, Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize, Harmony the path to fame. Then the progeny that springs From the forests of our land, Armed with thunder, clad with wings, Shall a wider world command. 'Regions Cæsar never knew Such the bard's prophetic words, She, with all a monarch's pride, 'Ruffians, pitiless as proud, Heaven awards the justice duc; Empire is on us bestowed, Shame and ruin wait for you!' M ROBERT BURNS. Born 1759. Died 1796. WE TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY. VEE, 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, Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet, Wi' speckled breast, When upward-springing, blithe, to greet The purpling east. Cauld blew the bitter-biting north Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth Amid the storm; Scarce reared above the parent-earth The flaunting flowers our gardens yield, O' clod, or stane, Adorns the histie stibble-field, Unseen, alane. There, in thy scanty mantle clad, In humble guise; But now the share uptears thy bed, Such is the fate of artless maid, And guileless trust, Till she, like thee, all soiled, is laid Such is the fate of simple bard, Of prudent lore, Till billows rage, and gales blow hard, Such fate to suffering worth is given, To misery's brink, Till, wrenched of every stay but Heaven, He, ruined, sink! |