This new Edition of the Works of David Gray, containing, it is believed, all the maturely finished poems of the author, is a double memorial. It commemorates “the thin-spun life” of a man of true genius and rare promise, and the highly cultured judgment and tender sympathies of a critic who has passed away in the vigorous fulness of his years. A specimen page of “The Luggie,” forwarded with an appreciative letter from a friend, reached the author on the day before his death. He received it as “good news”—the fragmentary realization of his ambitious dreams—and, in the hope that his name might not be wholly forgotten, said he could now enter “without tears” into his rest. Within a week before his removal from amongst us, Mr. Glassford Bell was engaged in correcting the proofs of the present edition. He had selected from a mass of MSS. and other material what new pieces he thought worthy of insertion in this enlarged edition—he had rearranged the whole and finally revised the greater part of the volume, which it was his intention to preface with a Memoir and Criticism. He looked forward to accomplishing this labour of love in a period of retirement from more active work which he had proposed to pass in Italy. It has been thought inadvisable to commit to other hands the unexpectedly interrupted task. For a statement of the few and simple vicissitudes of the Poet’s career, as well as a brief but discriminating estimate of his rank in our literature, the reader is referred to the speech—at the close of the volume—delivered by Mr. Bell, nine years ago, on the inauguration of the Monument in the “Auld Aisle” Burying-ground. Of the movement which resulted in this tribute to departed genius, the late Sheriff was one of the most active promoters. Himself a poet, and a generous patron of all genuine art, the West of Scotland has known no “larger heart” or “kindlier hand.” There is something suggestive in the fact that his last effort was to throw another wreath on the early tomb of David Gray. March, 1874.
CONTENTS. | page | | The Luggie, | 1 | | In the Shadows, | 63 |
Miscellaneous Poems. | | A Winter Ramble, | 99 | | The Home-Comer, | 104 | | My Brown Little Brother of Three, | 108 | | The “Auld Aisle,” | 111 | | To Jeanette, | 120 | | The Poet and His Friend, | 124 | | The Two Streams, | 127 | | Evening, | 132 | | The Love-Tryst, | 134 | | An Epistle to a Friend, | 139 | | A Vision of Venice, | 145 | | The Anemone, | 150 | | The Yellowhammer, | 154 | | The Cuckoo, | 158 | | Fame, | 161 | | Honeysuckle, | 164 | | Where the Lilies Used to Spring, | 167 | | Snow, | 170 | | October, | 175 | | The Roman Dyke, | 179 |
Sonnets. | | Ezekiel, | 183 | | The Mavis, | 184 | | Despondency, | 185 | | The Moon,I., II., | 186 | | The Luggie,I., II., III., | 188 | | Thomas the Rhymer, | 191 | | The Lime-Tree, | 192 | | The Brooklet, | 193 | | Maidenhood, | 194 | | Sleep, | 195 | | The Days of Old Mythology, | 196 | | Discontentment, | 197 | | Snow, | 198 | | The Thrush, | 199 | | Stars, | 200 | | My Epitaph, | 201 |
Gray’s Monument, |
203 |
The Luggie.
n> Now the big day, expected long, was come: And, with proud shoulders yoked, conscious they stood Patient and unrefusing; while behind, All ready stripped, brown brawny arms displayed— Arms sinewed by long labour—eager swains O’er-leaning slight, with cautious wary hold The plough detain. At the commencing sign A simultaneous noise discordant tears The air thick-closing to a hazy damp. Sudden the horses move, and the clear yokes, Well polished, clatter. With an artful bend The gleaming coulter takes the grass and cuts The greenly tedded blades with nibbling noise Almost unheard. The smooth share follows fast; And from its shining slope the clayey glebe In neat and neighbouring furrows sidelong falls. Thus till the dank, raw-cold, and unpurged day Gathering its rheumy humours threatens rain; And the bleak night steals up the forlorn east. And when the careful verdict is preferr’d By the wise judge (a gray-hair’d husbandman, Himself in his fresh youth a ploughboy keen), Some bosoms fire exultant. Others, slow Their reeking horses harnessed, lag along Heart-sad and weary; and the rumbling noise Of homeward-going carts for miles away Is heard, till night brings silence and repose. But never with sad motions of the soul, Despairing, yoked his sleek and smoking team For homeward journey my belovËd friend! He the great prize, the guinea all of gold, Gained thrice and grew a very famous man; Till Death, the churl accurs’d, him in his prime Bore to the border-land of wonder. Then I felt the blank in life when dies a friend. Inexplicable emptiness and want Unsatisfied! The unrepealable law Consumed the living while the dead decayed. No more, no more thro’ glorious nights of May We wander, chasing pleasure as of old. First night of May! and the soft-silvered moon Brightens her semicircle in the blue; And ’mid the tawny orange of the west Shines the full star that ushers in the even! On the low meadows by the Luggie-side Gathers a semi-lucent mist, and creeps In busy silence, shrouding golden furze And leafy copsewood. Thro’ the tortuous dell Like an eternal sound the Luggie flows In unreposing melody. And here, Three perfect summers gone, my dear first friend Was with me; and we swore a sudden oath, To travel half-a-dozen miles and court Two sisters, whose sweet faces sunshine kissed To berry brown and country comeliness— Kiss-worthier than the love of Solomon. So singing clearly with a merry heart Old songs—It was upon a Lammas nicht; And that sweet thing by gentle Tannahill, Married to music sweeter than itself; The Lowland Lassie—thro’ dew-silvered fields We hastened ’mid the mist our footsteps raised Until we reached the moorland. From its bed Among the purplish heather whirring rose The plover, wildly screaming; and from glens Of moaning firs the pheasant’s piercing shriek Discordant sounded. Then, ’mong elder trees Throwing antique fat shadows, soon we saw The window panes, moon-whitened; and low heard Bawtie, the shaggie collie, grumble out His disapproval in a sullen growl. But slyly wearing nearer, cried my friend, “Whisht, Bawtie! Bawtie!” and the fellow came Whining, and laid a wet nose in his palm Obedient, while I tinkled on the panes A fairy summons to the souls within. The door creaked musically, and a face Peeped smiling, till I whispered, “Open, Kate!” And thro’ the moonshine came the low sweet quest— “Oh! is it you?” My answer was a kiss. Then entering the kitchen paved with stone, We kicked the sparkling faggot till it blazed; And sitting round it, many a tale of love Was told, until the chrysolite of dawn Burned in the east, and from the mountain rolled The sarcenet mists far-flaming with the morn. This was my first of May three years ago: Now in a churchyard by the Bothlin side— The Auld Aisle—moulders my first friend, and keeps An early tryste with God, the All in All. We sat at school together on one seat, Came home together thro’ the lanes, and knew The dunnock’s nest together in the hedge, With smooth blue eggs in cosy brightness warm. And as two youngling kine on cold Spring nights Lie close together on the bleak hill-side For mutual heat, so when a trouble came We crept to one another, growing still True friends in interchange of heart and soul. But suddenly death changed his countenance, And grav’d him in the darkness far from me. O Friendship, prelibation of divine Enjoyment, union exquisite of soul, How many blessings do I owe to thee, How much of incommunicable woe! The daisies bloom among the tall green blades Upon his grave, and listening you may hear The Bothlin make sweet music as she flows; And you may see the poplars by her brink Twinkle their silvery leaflets in the sun. O little wandering preacher, Bothlin brook! Wind musically by his lonely grave. O well-known face, for ever lost! and voice, For ever silent! I have heard thee sing In village inns what time the silver frost Curtained the panes in silent ministry, Sing old Scotch ballads full of love and woe, While the assimilative snow fell white and calm With ceaseless lapse. And I have seen thee dance Wild galliards with the buxom lasses, far In lone farm-houses set on whistling hills, While the storm thickened into thunder-cloud. Dear mentor in all rustic merriment, Ever as hearty as the night was long! I miss thee often, as I do to-night,<
ver vision of the night, Or sacred show of reason, picturing A smooth ambition and calm happiness For years of weaker age—but suddenly In prime of life there flowered in his soul An inextinguishable love to be A minister of God. When holy schemes Govern the motions of the spirit, ways Are found to compass them. With wary care, Frugality praiseworthy, and the strength Of two strong arms, he in the summer months Hoarded a competence equivalent To all demands, until the session’s end. Whate’er by manual labour he had gained Thro’ the clear summer months in verdant fields, With brooks of silver laced, and cool’d with winds, Was spent in winter in the smoky town. But when, his annual course of study past, He with his presence blessed his father’s house, With what a sacred sanctity of hope Eager his mother dreamed, or garrulous Spake of him everywhere—his foreign ways, And midnight porings o’er uncanny books. His father, with a stern delight suffused, Grew a proud man of some importance now In his own eyes; for who in all the vale Had e’er a son so noble and so learned, So worthy as his own? So time wore on: but when three years complete Had perfected their separate destinies, A change stole o’er the current of their lives, As a cloud-shadow glooms the crystal stream. Their son came home, but with his coming came Sorrow. A hue too beautifully fair Brighten’d his cheek, as sunlight tints a cloud. His face had caught a trick of joy more sad Than visible grief; and all the subtle frame Of human life, so wonderfully wrought, A mystery of mechanism, was wearing In sore uneasy manner to the grave. What need to tell what every heart must know In sympathy prophetical? Long time, A varied year in seasons four complete (For the white snowdrop o’er my mother’s well Twice oped its whitest leaves among the green), He lay consuming. It must needs have been A weary trial to the thinking soul, Thus with a consciousness of coming death, The grim Attenuation! evermore Nearing insatiate. At her spinning-wheel His mother sat; and when his voice grew faint, A simple whistle by his pillow lay, And at its sound she entered patient, sad, Her soothing love to minister, her hope To nourish to its fading. But his breath Grew weaker ever; and his dry pale lips Closing upon the little instrument, Could not produce a faintly audible note! A little bell, the plaything of a child, Now at his bedside hung, and its clear tones Tinkled the weary summons. Thus his time Narrowed to a completion, and his soul, Immortal in its nature, thro’ his eyes Yearning, beheld the majesty of Him Great in His mystery of godliness, Fulfiller of the dim Apocalypse! Twelve years have passed since then, and he is now A happy memory in the hearts of those Who knew him; for to know him was to love. And oft I deem it better, as the fates, Or God, whose will is fate, have proven it; For had he lived and fallen (as who of us Doth perfectly? and let him that is proud Take heed lest he do fall) he would have been A sadness to them in their aged hours. But now he is an honour and delight; A treasure of the memory; a joy Unutterable: by the lone fireside They never tire to speak his praise, and say How, if he had been spared, he would have been So great, and good, and noble as (they say) The country knows; although I know full well That not a man in all the parish round Speaks of him ever; he is now forgot, And this his natal valley knows him not.— And this his natal valley knows him not? The well-belovËd, nothing?—the fair face And pliant limbs, poor indistinctive dust? The body, blood, and network of the brain Crumbled as a clod crumbles! Is this all? A turf, a date, an epitaph, and then Oblivion, and profound nonentity! And thus his natal valley knows him not. Trees murmur to the passing wind, streams flow, Flowers shine with dewdrops in the shady glens, All unintelligent creation smiles In loving-kindness; but, like a light dream Of morning, man arises in fair show, Like the hued rainbow from incumbent gloom Elicited, he shines against the sun— A momentary glory. Not a voice Remains to whisper of his whereabouts: The palpable body in its mother’s breast Dissolves, and every feature of the face Is lost in feculent changes. O black earth! Wrap from bare eyes the slow decaying form, The beauty rotting from the living hair, The body made incapable thro’ sin God’s Spirit to contain. Earth, wrap it close Till the heavens vibrate to the trump of doom! This is not all: for the invisible soul Betrays the soft desire, the quenchless wish, To live a purer life, more proximate To the prime Fountain of all life. The power Of vivid fancy and the boundless scenes (High coloured with the colouring of Heaven), Creations of imagination, tell The mortal yearnings of immortal souls! Now, while around me in blind labour winds Howl, and the rain-drops lash the streaming pane; Now, while the pine-glen on the mountain side Roars in its wrestling with the sightless foe, And the black tarn grows hoary with the storm;— Amid the external elemental war, My soul with calm comportment—more becalmed By the wild tempest furious without— Sits in her sacred cell, and ruminates On Death, severe discloser of new life. When the well-known and once embraceable form Is but a handful of white dust, t
A POEM IN SONNETS.
Induction. E ENTER, scared mortal! and in awe behold The chancel of a dying poet’s mind, Hung round, ah! not adorned, with pictures bold And quaint, but roughly touched for the refined. The chancel not the charnel house! For I To God have raised a shrine immaculate Therein, whereon His name to glorify, And daily mercies meekly celebrate. So in, scared breather! here no hint of death— Skull or cross-bones suggesting sceptic fear; Yea rather calmer beauty, purer breath Inhaled from a diviner atmosphere.
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