"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 cauld,
Thy snawie bosom sunward spread,
Thou lifts thy unassuming head
In humble guise;
But now the share uptears thy bed,
And low thou lies!"
*Shelter.
**Bare stubble field.
Burns wrote love songs too, for he was constantly in love--often
to his discredit, and at length he married Jean Armour, Scots
fashion, by writing a paper saying that they were man and wife
and giving it to her. This was enough in those days to make a
marriage. But Burns had no money; the brothers' farm had not
prospered, and Jean's father, a stern old Scotsman, would have
nothing to say to Robert, who was in his opinion a bad man, and a
wild, unstable, penniless rimester.
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