Robert Pollok, author of the immortal poem, "The Course of Time," was the son of a small farmer in the parish of Eaglesham, Renfrewshire, where he was born on the 19th October 1798. With a short interval of employment in the workshop of a cabinetmaker, he was engaged till his seventeenth year in services about his father's farm. Resolving to prepare for the ministry in the Secession Church, he took lessons in classical learning at the parish school of Fenwick, Ayrshire, and in twelve months fitted himself for the university. He attended the literary and philosophical classes in Glasgow College, during five sessions, and subsequently studied in the Divinity Hall of the United Secession Church. He wrote verses in his boyhood, in his eighteenth year composed a poetical essay, and afterwards produced respectable translations from the Classics as college exercises. His great poem, "The Course of Time," was commenced in December 1824, and finished within the space of nineteen months. On the 24th March 1827, the poem was published by Mr Blackwood; and on the 2d of the following May the author received his license as a probationer. The extraordinary success of his poem had excited strong anticipations in respect of his professional career, but these were destined to disappointment. Pollok only preached four times. His constitution, originally robust, had suffered from over exertion in boyhood, and more recently from a course of sedulous application in preparing for license, and in the production of his poem. To recruit his wasted strength, a change of climate was necessary, and that of Italy was recommended. The afflicted poet only reached Southampton, where he died a few weeks after his arrival, on the 18th September 1827. In Millbrook churchyard, near Southampton, where his remains were interred, a monument has been erected to his memory.
Besides his remarkable poem, Pollok published three short tales relative to the sufferings of the Covenanters. He had projected a large work respecting the influences which Christianity had exercised upon literature. Since his death, several short poetical pieces from his pen have, along with a memoir, been published by his brother. In person he was of the ordinary height, and of symmetrical form. His complexion was pale brown; his features small, and his eyes dark and piercing. "He was," writes Mr Gabriel Neil, who enjoyed his friendship, "of plain simple manners, with a well-cultivated mind; he loved debate, and took pleasure in good-humoured controversy." The copyright of "The Course of Time" continues to produce emolument to the family.
THE AFRICAN MAID.
On the fierce savage cliffs that look down on the flood,
Where to ocean the dark waves of Gabia haste,
All lonely, a maid of black Africa stood,
Gazing sad on the deep and the wide roaring waste.
A bark for Columbia hung far on the tide,
And still to that bark her dim wistful eye clave;
Ah! well might she gaze—in the ship's hollow side,
Moan'd her Zoopah in chains—in the chains of a slave.
Like the statue of Sorrow, forgetting to weep,
Long dimly she follow'd the vanishing sail,
Till it melted away where clouds mantle the deep;
Then thus o'er the billows she utter'd her wail:—
"O my Zoopah come back! wilt thou leave me to woe?
Come back, cruel ship, and take Monia too!
Ah ye winds, wicked winds! what fiend bids ye blow
To waft my dear Zoopah far, far from my view?
*****
"Great Spirit! why slumber'd the wrath of thy clouds,
When the savage white men dragg'd my Zoopah away?
Why linger'd the panther far back in his woods?
Was the crocodile full of the flesh of his prey?
"Ah cruel white monsters! plague poison their breath,
And sleep never visit the place of their bed!
On their children and wives, on their life and their death,
Abide still the curse of an African maid!"
