David Gray

Poems David Gray

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1865 edition. Excerpt: ... last, through the agency of Mr. Dobell, the poem was placed in the hands of the printer. On the 2d December, 1861, a specimen page was sent to the author. David gazed long and lingeringly on the printed page. It was "good news," he said. The next day the shadow fell on the weaver's household, for David was no more. Thus, on the 3d December, he passed tranquilly away, almost his last words being, "God has love, and I have faith." On the Saturday after his death, his body was carried on hand-spokes (the old Scottish fashion) to the Auld Aisle Burying-ground, a lovely graveyard, surrounded by a stone wall, and standing on an elevation at a short distance from the weaver's door. A solitary ash-tree waves over the grave, which is, as yet, unmarked by any memorial stone. Shortly after his death, The Luggie and other Poems was published by Messrs. Macmillan, of Cambridge, in a little volume, with an Introduction by Mr. Milnes, and a short Memoir. And David's poetry? We have said that it is yet too early to estimate that at its true value; but it can never be read apart from the brief story of the writer. More than most men did David interweave his own personal joys and sufferings with the text of his ambitious verse. He was far too self-absorbed to possess dramatic power. His writings, however, have a pathos and an earnestness which we frequently look for in vain in the books of greater men. We will give one extract, which could only have been written by one in whom the faculty divine was strong, intense, and artistic.. We may call it AN OCTOBER MUSING. Ere the last stack is housed, and woods are bare, And the vermilion fruitage of the brier Is soaked in mist, or shrivelled up with frost; Ere warm spring-nests are coldly to be seen Tenantless but for...