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JAMES MACFARLAN.

BORN 1832- DIED 1862.

in verse, written a few months before his death. was the thrilling lines entitled "The Drunkard's Doom."

This literary work extended over a period of about eight years, but before its close a pulmonary disease had attacked the poet, and his recovery became doubtful. For the last two years of his life he was the daily companion and guest of Mr. H. Buchanan MacPhail, who took him on an excursion to Ireland and to various

JAMES MACFARLAN-a gifted but almost forgotten Scottish poet, who died at the early age of thirty-was born in Glasgow, April 9, 1832. To his mother he was indebted for his first lessons, and was far advanced in reading when sent to school in his eighth year. His schoolmaster describes him "as one of those boys a teacher takes a pride in-always obedient, assiduous, and attentive; causing him little trouble, and realizing to him what the poet is pleased to describe as "The Delight-places on the Scottish coast. But all efforts ful Task!"" In this school he remained for for his recovery proved in vain, and he expired about two years, and made good progress in in Glasgow, Nov. 6, 1862. By his own desire his education, giving evidence even thus early his remains were interred in Mr. MacPhail's of the poetic power he displayed in after life. burying ground, Cheapside Street, Anderston. On leaving school James began to accompany Four children were the issue of the poet's his father in excursions which he at that time marriage, one of whom, his second-born and took among the towns and villages in the west favourite child Ann, alone survived him for of Scotland for the sale of his goods; and thus, some two years. A complete edition of his travelling up and down the country, was the poems, with a memoir of the poet, is now boy-poet for years made familiar with the mag- | (July, 1876) in preparation by Mr. MacPhail. nificent scenery of nature, and fitted to produce that rich legacy of song which he has bequeathed

to us.

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Of Macfarlan's poetic talent Dr. Rogers eloquently says:-"His muse taught philosophy, and dealt with the spiritual properties of things. Like the ancient enraptured prophet, his lofty conceptions impart breadth and compass to his imagery. Unlike the bards of the spasmodie school, he keeps a rein upon his fancy; his flights are never beyond the comprehension or the patience of his reader. His language is chaste, ornate, and exact; he concentrates rather than expands his sentiments; in the graceful flow of numbers, he never betrays a point of weakness. He has celebrated the nobler affections and instincts of the human heart-and painted with master hand the scenes of civic activity and rustic gladness. He writes hopefully of human progress, deprecates the revival of ancient feuds, and rejoices in a high-souled patriotism. He is the poet of that species of chivalry which cannot stoop to dishonour, and rejoices to upraise and support the weak. He has written not a single line which in the heart of another will awaken

In August, 1855, Macfarlan married Agnes Miller, whom he had known from earliest life. She was the poet's first love, and proved a suitable partner for him; but the youthful pair had to contend with the trials of straitened circumstances, for the largest wage the husband ever received was fifteen shillings a week, and that only for a very brief period. Yet, in spite of this adverse fortune, we find him in 1854 issuing a volume entitled 'Poems: Pictures of the Past," &c., published in London by Robert Hardwicke; and in rapid succession followed in book form " City Songs," "Lyrics of Life," "Wanderer of the West," "The Attic Study, or Brief Notes on Nature, Men, and Books;" while in the course of his brief career he was engaged from day to day contributing to the periodical press the following among other writings:"Tales and Sketches," "One of a Million," "Wayside Thoughts," and composing poems for All the Year Round. His last production | unpleasing emotions."

THE LORDS OF LABOUR.

They come, they come, in a glorious march,
You can hear their steam-steeds neigh,
As they dash through Skill's triumphal arch,
Or plunge 'mid the dancing spray.
Their bale-fires blaze in the mighty forge,
Their life-pulse throbs in the mill,
Their lightnings shiver the gaping gorge,
And their thunders shake the hill.

Ho! these are the Titans of toil and trade,
The heroes who wield no sabre;
But mightier conquests reapeth the blade
That is borne by the lords of labour.

Brave hearts like jewels light the sod,
Through the mists of commerce shine,
And souls flash out, like stars of God,
From the midnight of the mine.
No palace is theirs, no castle great,

No princely pillar'd hall,

But they well may laugh at the roofs of state, 'Neath the heaven which is over all.

Ho! these are the Titans of toil and trade,
The heroes who wield no sabre;
But mightier conquests reapeth the blade
Which is borne by the lords of labour.

Each bares his arm for the ringing strife

That marshals the sons of the soil, And the sweat-drops shed in their battle of life Are gems in the crown of Toil. And better their well-won wreaths, I trow, Than laurels with life-blood wet; And nobler the arch of a bare bold brow, Than the clasp of a coronet.

Then hurrah for each hero, although his
deed

Be unblown by the trump or tabor,
For holier, happier far is the meed

That crowneth the lords of labour.

BOOKWORLD.

When the dim presence of the awful night Clasps in its jewell'd arms the slumbering earth, Alone I sit beside the lowly light,

That like a dream-fire flickers on my hearth, With some joy-teeming volume in my handA peopled planet, opulent and grand.

It may be Shakspere, with his endless train Of sceptred thoughts, a glorious progeny Borne on the whirlwind of his mighty strain, Through vision-lands, for ever far and free,

His great mind beaming thro' those phantom crowds,

Like evening sun from out a wealth of clouds.

It may be Milton, on his seraph wing,

Soaring to heights of grandeur yet untrod;
Now deep where horrid shapes of darkness cling,
Now lost in splendour at the feet of God;
Girt with the terror of avenging skies,
Or wrapt in dreams of infant paradise.

It may be Spenser, with his misty shades
Where forms of beauty wondrous tales rehearse,
With breezy vistas, and with cool arcades
Opening for ever in his antique verse.
It may be Chaucer, with his drink divine,
His Tabard old, and pilgrims twenty-nine.

Perchance I linger with the mighty three
Of glorious Greece, that morning land of song,
Who bared the fearful front of tragedy,

And soared to fame on pinions broad and strong; Or watch beneath the Trojan ramparts proud The dim hosts gathering like a thunder-cloud.

No rust of time can sully Quixote's mail,
In wonted rest his lance securely lies;
Still is the faithful Sancho stout and hale,
For ever wide his wonder-stricken eyes;
And Rosinante, bare and spectral steed,
Still throws gaunt shadows o'er their every decd.

Still can I robe me in the old delights

The star-wealth of Arabia's Thousand Nights,
Of caliph splendid, and of genii grim,
Shining till every other light grows dim;
Wander away in broad voluptuous lands,
By streams of silver, and through golden sands;

Still hear the storms of Camoens burst and swell, His seas of vengeance raging wild and wide; Or wander by the glimmering fires of hell,

With dreaming Dante and his spirit-guide; Loiter in Petrarch's green melodious grove, Or hang with Tasso o'er his hopeless love.

What then to me is all your sparkling dance, Wine-purpled banquet, or vain fashion's blaze, Thus roaming through the realms of rich romance, Old Bookworld, and its wealth of royal days, For ever with those brave and brilliant ones That fill time's channel like a stream of suns!

THE MIDNIGHT TRAIN. Across the dull and brooding night A giant flies with demon light, And breath of wreathing smoke; Around him whirls the reeling plain,

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And with a dash of grim disdain He cleaves the sundered rock.

In lonely swamps the low wind stirs
The belt of black funereal firs,

That murmur to the sky,
Till, startled by his mad career,
They seem to keep a hush of fear,
As if a god swept by!

Through many a dark wild heart of heath, O'er booming bridges, where beneath

A midnight river brawls;

By ruins, remnants of the past,
Their ivies trembling in the blast;
By singing waterfalls!

The slumb'rer on his silent bed
Turns to the light his lonely head,

Divested of its dream.

Long leagues of gloom are hurried o'er,
Through tunnel-sheaths, with iron roar,
And shrill night-rending scream.

Past huddling huts, past flying farms,
High furnace flames, whose crimson arms
Are grappling with the night,
He tears along receding lands,
To where the kingly city stands,
Wrapt in a robe of light.

Here, round each wide and gushing gate,
A crowd of eager faces wait,

And every smile is known.

We thank thee, O thou Titan train,
That in the city once again

We clasp our loved, our own!

THE WIDOW'S WAKE.

Deep in the midnight lane,

Where glimmering tapers feebly pierce the gloom,

Through many a winking pane,

All tearful in the rain,

The widow lies within her naked room.

Coldly the widow lies,

Though woe and want can touch her never more; And in her beamless eyes Grief's well, that rarely dries,

Never again shall hoard its oozy store.

Coldly the widow lies,

God's mighty midnight creepeth overhead King's couch and pauper's bed, All human tears, all cares, all agonies, Beneath His gaze are spread.

And these poor boards of thin and dismal deal, That hold her mortal relics, in His eyes

Are sacred as the gilded obsequies,

When purchased mourners kneel

'Mid all the painful pomp in which some great man lies.

None may this vigil keep:

Retired in life, the widow died alone, And in this silent sleep

None wait by her; none weep

To find that she is gone.

Only the winds that steal

Coldly across the damp and broken wall,
On that pale visage fall,

As though they paused, her icy brow to feel,
Or death's blank gaze a moment to reveal,
Uplift the scanty pall.

And this is she who struggled long and sore, In the black night-time of a dire distressMost patient wretchedness,

Bearing a bitter cross to death's dark door,

Receiving there-if humankind may guessA crown of glory for the thorns she wore.

THE RUINED CITY.

The shadows of a thousand Springs,
Unnumbered sunsets, sternly sleep
Above the dust of perished things

That form this city's blasted heap. Dull watch the crumbling columns keep Against the fierce relentless sky, Hours, that no dial noteth, creep

Like unremembered phantoms by;
And still this city of the dead
Gives echo to no human tread.

A curse is writ on every stone,

The temple's latest pillar lies

Like some white mammoth's bleaching bone, Its altars know no deities.

Fine columns of a palace rise,

And when the sun is red and low,
And glaring in the molten skies,

A shadow huge these columns throw,
That like some dark colossal hand
In silence creeps across the sand.

The senate slumbers, wondrous hive

Of counsels sage, of subtle schemes; But does no lingering tone survive

To prove their presence more than dreams? No light of revelation beams

Around that voiceless forum now,

Time bears upon his restless streams

No reflex of the haughty brow
That oft has frowned a nation's fate
Here-where dark reptiles congregate.

Where, where is now the regal rag

That clothed the monarch of yon tower, On which the rank weed flaps its flag

Across the dusk this sombre hour?
Alas! for pomp, alas! for power,

When time unveils their nakedness.
And valour's strength and beauty's flower
Find nought to echo their distress;
And flattery-fine delusive breath-
Melts in the iron grasp of death.

Day rises with an angry glance,

As if to blight the stagnant air, And hurls his fierce and fiery lance

On that doomed city's forehead bare. The sunset's wild and wandering hair Streams backward like a comet's mane, And from the deep and sullen glare

The shuddering columns crouch in vain, And through the wreck of wrathful years The grim hyæna stalks and sneers.

SHADOWS ON THE WALL.

Beside the hearth there is an hour of dreaming,
A calm and pensive solitude of soul,
When life and death have each another seeming,
And thoughts are with us owning no control.
These are the spirits, memory's revealing,
In deep solemnity they rise and fall,
Shrouding the living present, and concealing
The world around us-Shadows on the Wall.

Hopes, like the leaves and blossoms, rudely shaken
By cruel winds of winter, from the tree
Of our existence; phantoms that awaken
Wild passing gleams of joy's young ecstasy;
And love, once kind and tenderly outpouring
Her wine into our souls, we may recall,
And find them dear and ever heavenward soaring,
Though only now as Shadows on the Wall.

Old clasping hands, old friendships and affections,
Once bodied forms beside us on the earth,
Come back to haunt us, ghostly recollections
With mystic converse by the silent hearth.
Yet these are kindly spirits, and retiring

Draw their long shadows slowly from the wall,
And visit us in peace and gentleness, inspiring
A hope that brings the sunshine after all,

DAVID GRAY.

BORN 1838- DIED 1861.

classes in the university during four successive sessions. Having likewise obtained some em

sary to add French to his lingual acquisitions. But whatever progress he made in his more severe studies, it soon became evident that the bent of his mind was poetical, rather than theological. In place of composing sermons he took to writing verses, many of which were published in the Glasgow Citizen; and finally abandoning the idea of the pulpit, he decided on the career of a man of letters.

DAVID GRAY, the son of a poor weaver, and the eldest of eight children, was born Jan. 29, 1838, at Duntiblae, on the banks of the Lug-ployment as a private tutor, he found it necesgie, about eight miles from Glasgow. From early childhood the little fellow was noted for his wit and cleverness; and while at the Kirkintilloch parish school his literary bias became strikingly apparent. Zealous at his tasks, bright with precocious intellect, an unconscionable devourer of books, and ambitious of fame, it was early intended that he should devote himself to the ministry. When about fourteen years old he was accordingly sent to Glasgow, where, supporting himself to a considerable extent by laborious tuition, first as a pupil teacher in a public school in Bridgeton, and afterward as Queen's scholar in the Free Church Normal Seminary, he contrived to attend the Humanity, Greek, and other

Soon after Gray went to London, living in a garret with his poet friend Robert Buchanan, now on the high road to immortality, and trying unsuccessfully to obtain a publisher for his poems. From Lord Houghton, the biographer of John Keats, he received some literary employment; and when the young poct

was suddenly struck down in the enthusiasm In the memoir of Gray, his generous friend of his struggles and the pride of his hopes Lord Houghton remarks: "I will not here with ill-health, that nobleman furnished him assume the position of a poetical critic, both with the best medical advice, and, after a because I know such criticism to be dreary and brief sojourn in the south of England without unsatisfactory, and because I am conscious benefit, had him carefully sent back to his that the personal interest I took in David Gray father's humble home at Merkland. Here he is likely in some degree to influence my judglingered for some months, and at length passed ment. There is in truth no critic of poetry away tranquilly, Dec. 3, 1861, almost his last but the man who enjoys it, and the amount of words being "God has love, and I have faith." | gratification felt is the only just measure of The day previous his heart was gladdened by criticism. I believe, however, that I should the sight of a specimen page of his "Luggie." | have found much pleasure in these poems if I After his death the following epitaph, written had met with them accidentally, and if I had in his own clear hand, was found among his been unaware of the strange and pathetic inpapers:cidents of their production. But the publie mind will not separate the intrinsic merits of the verses from the story of the writer, any more than the works and fate of Keats or Chatterton. We value all connected with the being of every true poet, because it is the highest form of nature that man is permitted to study and enjoy."

"Below lies one whose name was traced in sind;
He died not knowing what it was to live:
Died while the first sweet consciousness of manhood
And maiden thought electrified his soul;
Faint beatings in the calyx of the rose.
Bewildered reader, pass without a sigh
In a proud sorrow! There is life with God,
In other kingdom of a sweeter air;
In Eden every flower is blown. Amen."

A handsome monument was erected to the young poet's memory by friends from far and near in the "Auld Aisle" burying ground near Kirkintilloch, and an address delivered by Sheriff Bell on the occasion of its inauguration, July 29, 1865. About the same time there appeared a small volume entitled Poems by David Gray, with Memoirs, from the pens of Lord Houghton and James Hedderwick; and Robert Buchanan also published a lengthy obituary notice in the Cornhill Magazine. This work was republished in the United States, and met with a large circulation. A new and enlarged edition of Gray's Poems was issued in Glasgow in 1874 by James Maclehose, through whose courtesy we are permitted to insert the following selections.

The object of Gray's principal poem, "The Luggie," as has been well said, "may not possess in itself much to attract the painter's eye, but it has sufficed for a poet's love." Of his sonnets entitled “In the Shadows," Sheriff Bell remarks, they "appear to me to possess a solemn beauty not surpassed by many of the finest passages in Tennyson's 'In Memoriam,' totally distinct and unlike the In Memoriam,' but as genuine, as sincere, as heartstirring, and often as poetical. In the poet's own words, they admit you to the chancel of a dying poet's mind:' you feel when you are reading these sonnets that they are written in the sure and immediate prospect of death; but they contain thoughts about life, about the past, and about the future, most powerful and most beautiful."

THE YELLOW-HAMMER.

In fairy glen of Woodilee,
One sunny summer morning,
I plucked a little birchen tree,
The spongy moss adorning;
And bearing it delighted home,
I planted it in garden loam,
Where, perfecting all duty,
It flower'd in tasselled beauty.

When delicate April in each dell
Was silently completing
Her ministry in bud and bell,
To grace the summer's meeting;
My birchen tree of glossy rind
Determined not to be behind;
So with a subtle power
The buds began to flower.

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