William Finlay was the son of an operative shawl manufacturer in Paisley, where he was born in 1792. He received a classical education at the Grammar-school, and was afterwards apprenticed to his father's trade. For a period of twenty years he prosecuted the labours of the loom; but finding the occupation injurious to his health, he accepted employment in the cotton mills of Duntocher. He afterwards obtained a situation in a printing-office in Paisley, where he remained during eight years. Ultimately, he was employed at Nethercraigs' bleachfield, at the base of Gleniffer braes, about two miles to the south of Paisley. He died of fever on the 5th November 1847, leaving a family of five children.
Finlay was in the practice of contributing verses to the local prints. In 1846, he published a duodecimo volume, entitled, "Poems, Humorous and Sentimental." His poetical characteristics are simplicity and pathos, combined with considerable power of satirical drollery. Delighting in music, and fond of society, he was occasionally led to indulge in excesses, of which, at other times, he was heartily ashamed, and which he has feelingly lamented in some of his poems. Few Scottish poets have more touchingly depicted the evils of intemperance.
THE BREAKING HEART.
I mark'd her look of agony,
I heard her broken sigh,
I saw the colour leave her cheek,
The lustre leave her eye;
I saw the radiant ray of hope
Her sadden'd soul forsaking;
And, by these tokens, well I knew
The maiden's heart was breaking.
It is not from the hand of Heaven
Her bitter grief proceeds;
'Tis not for sins that she hath done,
Her bosom inly bleeds;
'Tis not death's terrors wrap her soul
In shades of dark despair,
But man—deceitful man—whose hand
A thorn hath planted there.
THE AULD EMIGRANT'S FAREWEEL TO SCOTLAND.
Land of my fathers! night's dark gloom
Now shades thee from my view—
Land of my birth! my hearth, my home,
A long, a last adieu!
Thy sparkling streams, thy plantin's green,
That ring with melodie,
Thy flowery vales, thy hills and dales,
Again I 'll never see.
How aft have I thy heathy hills
Climb'd in life's early day!
Or pierced the dark depths of thy woods
To pu' the nit or slae;
Or lain beneath the spreading thorn,
Hid frae the sun's bright beams,
While on my raptured ear was borne
The music of thy streams!
And aft, when frae the schule set free,
I 've join'd a merry ban',
Whase hearts were loupin' licht wi' glee,
Fresh as the morning's dawn,
And waunert, Cruikston, by thy tower,
Or through thy leafy shaw,
The livelang day, nor thocht o' hame
Till nicht began to fa'.
But now the buoyancy o' youth,
And a' its joys are gane—
My children scatter'd far and wide,
And I am left alane;
For she who was my hope and stay,
And soothed me when distress'd,
Within the narrow house of death
Has lang been laid at rest.
And puirtith's cloud doth me enshroud;
Sae, after a' my toil,
I 'm gaun to lay my puir auld clay
Within a foreign soil.
Fareweel, fareweel, auld Scotia dear!
A last fareweel to thee!
Thy tinkling rills, thy heath-clad hills,
Again I 'll never see!
O'ER MOUNTAIN AND VALLEY.
O'er mountain and valley
Morn gladly did gleam;
The streamlets danced gaily
Beneath its bright beam;
The daisies were springing
To life at my feet;
The woodlands were ringing
With melody sweet.
But the sky became low'ring,
And clouds big with rain,
Their treasures outpouring,
Soon deluged the plain.
The late merry woodlands
Grew silent and lone;
And red from the muirlands
The river rush'd down.
Thus life, too, is chequer'd
With sunshine and gloom;
Of change 'tis the record—
Now blight and now bloom.
Oft morn rises brightly,
With promise to last,
But long, long ere noontide
The sky is o'ercast.
Yet much of the trouble
'Neath which mortals groan,
They contrive to make double
By whims of their own.
Oh! it makes the heart tingle
With anguish to think,
That our own hands oft mingle
The bitters we drink.
