The bright fire is shining upon the clean hearth; That wakes but at Christmas, the pride of the year! Bring in the green holly, the box, and the yew, ANONYMOUS. PROCRASTINATION. FROM ELIZA COOK'S JOURNAL." SHUN delays, they breed remorse; Fly thy fault lest thou repent thee; Hoist up sail while gale doth last; Tide and wind wait no man's pleasure; Sober speed is wisdom's leisure; Let thy forewit guide thy thought. THOU BONNY WOOD OF CRAIGIE LEA. ROBERT TANNAHILL, BORN IN PAISLEY, JUNE 3, 1774, DIED MAY 17, 1810. THOU bonny wood of Craigie Lea! Near thee I pass'd life's early day, And won my Mary's heart in thee. The broom, the brier, the birken bush, Far ben thy dark green planting's shade, Awa,' ye thoughtless, murdering gang, When Winter blaws in sleety showers Though fate should drag me south the line, The happy hours I'll ever min', That I in youth ha'e spent in thee.' THE MIDGES DANCE ABOON THE BURN. ROBERT TANNAHILL. THE midges dance aboon the burn, The dews begin to fa', The pairtricks down the rushy holm, Set up their e'ening ca'. Now loud and clear the blackbird's sang Rings through the briery shaw, While flittering, gay, the swallows play Beneath the golden gloamin' sky The mavis mends her lay, The redbreast pours his sweetest strains, While weary yeldrins seem to wail The merry wren, frae den to den, The roses fauld their silken leaves, Spread fragrance through the dell.— Let others crowd the giddy court The simple joys that Nature yields Are dearer far to me. Melancholy is the contemplation of the beginning and the end of Robert Tannahill, the popular song-writer of Paisley. Tannahill was, no doubt, stimulated by the fame of Burns. True, he had not the genius of Burns, but genius he had, and that is conspicuous in many of those songs which during his lifetime were sung with enthusiasm by his countrymen. Tannahill was a poor weaver. The cottage where he lived is still to be seen, a very ordinary weaver's cottage in an ordinary street; and the place where he drowned himself may be seen too at the outside of the town. This is one of the most dismal places in which a poet ever terininated his career. Tannahill, like Burns, was fond of a jovial hour among his comrades in a public house. But weaving of verse and weaving of calico did not agree. The world applauded, but did not patronize; poverty came like an armed man; and Tannahill, in the frenzy of despair, resolved to terminate his existence. Outside of Paisley there is a place where a small stream passes under a canal. To facilitate this passage, a deep pit is sunk, and a channel for the waters is made under the bottom of the canal. This pit is, I believe, eighteen feet deep. It is built round with stone, which is rounded off at its mouth, so that any one falling in cannot by any possibility get out, for there is nothing to lay hold of. No doubt Tannahill in a moment of gloomy observation had noted this. At midnight he came, stripped off his coat, laid down his hat, and took the fatal plunge. No cry could reach human ear from that horrible abyss: no effort of the strongest swimmer could avail to sustain him. Thus died Robert Tannahill, and a more fearful termination was never put to a poetical career."Homes and Haunts of the most eminent British Poets; by William Howitt. MERRIE ENGLAND. FROM MERRIE ENGLAND IN THE OLDEN TIME," BY GEORGE DANIEL, O WHY was England 'merrie' called, I pray you tell me why? Because Old England merry was in merry times gone by! She knew no dearth of honest mirth to cheer both son and sire, But kept it up o'er wassail cup around the Christmas fire. |