John Morrison was a native of Perthshire. Sometime before 1745 he was settled as missionary at Amulree, a muirland district near Dunkeld. In 1759 he became minister of Petty, a parish in the county of Inverness. He obtained his preferment in consequence of an interesting incident in his history. The proprietor of Delvine in Perthshire, who was likewise a Writer to the Signet, was employed in a legal process, which required a diligence to be executed against one of the clan Frazer. A design to waylay and murder the official employed in the diligence had been concerted. This came to the knowledge of a clergyman who ministered in a parish chiefly inhabited by the Lovat tenantry. The minister, afraid of openly divulging the design, on account of the unsettled nature of his flock, begged an immediate visit from his friend, Mr Morrison, who speedily returned to Perthshire with information to the laird of Delvine. The Frazers found the authority of the law supported by a sufficient force; and Mr Morrison was rewarded by being presented, through the influence of the laird of Delvine, to the parish of Petty. Amidst professional engagements discharged with zeal and acceptance, Morrison found leisure for the composition of verses. Two of his lyrics are highly popular among the Gael; one of them we offer as a specimen, and an improved version of the other will afterwards appear in the present work. Mr Morrison died in November 1774.
The heroine of this piece was a young lady who became the author's wife, upon an acquaintance originally formed by the administration of the ordinance of baptism to her in infancy.
My beauty dark, my glossy bright,
Dark beauty, do not leave me;
They call thee dark, but to my sight
Thou 'rt milky white, believe me.
'Twas at the tide of Candlemas,[160]
Came tirling at my door,
The image of a lovely lass
That haunts me evermore.
Beside my sleeping couch she stood,
And now she mars my rest;
Still as I try the solemn mood,
She hunts it from my breast.
At lecture and at study
That ankle white I span,
Its sandal slim, its lacings trim,—
A fay I seem to scan.
Thy beauty 's like a drift of spray
That dashes to the side,
Or like the silver-tail'd that play
Their gambols in the tide.
As heaps of snow on mountain brow
When shed the clouds their fleece,
Or churn of waves when tempest raves,
Thy swelling limbs in grace.
Thy eyes are black as berries,
Thy cheeks are waxen dyed,
And on thy temple tarries
The raven's dusk, my pride!
Gives light below each slim eye-brow
A swelling orb of blue,
In April meads so glance the beads,
In May the honey-dew.
Dark, tangled, deep, no drifted heap,
But sheaf-like, neatly bound
Thy tresses seem, in braids, or stream
As bright thine ears around.
Those raven spires of hair, that fair,
That turret-bosom's shine!
False friends! from me that banish'd thee,
Who fain would call thee mine.
No lilts I spin, their love to win,
The viol strings I shun,
But lend thine ear and thou shalt hear
My wisdom, dearest one!
