下载掌阅APP，畅读海量书库
立即打开
Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow’r,
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 pow’r,
Thou bonnie gem.
Alas! it’s no thy neebor sweet,
The bonnie Lark, companion meet,
Bending thee ’mang the dewy weet,
Wi’ speckl’d breast!
When upward-springing, blythe, 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 rear’d above the parent-earth
Thy tender form.
The flaunting flow’rs our gardens yield,
High shelt’ring 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 simple Bard,
On life’s rough ocean, luckless starr’d!
Unskillful 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 giv’n,
Who long with wants and woes has striven,
By human pride or cunning driv’n
To misery’s brink,
Till wrench’d of ev’ry stay but Heav’n,
He, ruin’d, sink!
Ev’n 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 crushed beneath the furrow’s weight
Shall be thy doom!
( Robert Burns )
Robert Burns (1759-1796) was a Scotch poet, whose home as near Ayr, in Scotland. His life was short and filled with poverty and hardship, but he was able to write sweet songs and sincere poems because he saw beauty in the common things of life and had a heart full of sympathy. He wrote this poem at a time when he was in great trouble.
His farm was turning out badly, the soil was sour and wet, his crops were failures, and he saw nothing but ruin before him. Bums’s tenderness and sympathy are shown in this poem by his description of the way he felt when he saw that he had crushed the flower.
glinted : darted
unassuming : humble
guise : manner, way
uptears : uproots
elate : joyous
bard : poet
Answer the following questions.
1) How does Burns describe the daisy?
2) What are some examples of Burns’ use of the Scottish dialect?
3) What is the incident that happens in the first stanza
4) What comparison is made between the daisy and the garden floers?
5) What characteristic of the daisy does Burns seem to like best?