PAGE 'Delaying as the tender ash delays To clothe herself, when all the woods are green.' This sonnet was addressed to his brother-poet, Robert Buchanan. See Mr. Buchanan's David Gray, and Other Essays, 1868, p. 117. 233-CCCCLXII. There is something infinitely touching in the fondness with which young poets passing through the shadows' have looked to this little flower as the emblem of hope for them. One of our latest inheritors of unfulfilled renown' thus glorifies it in sonnetform (The Life of a Scottish Probationer: being a Memoir of Thomas Davidson. With his Poems and Extracts from his Letters. By Dr. James Brown, of Paisley: 1878, 2nd ed., p. 226): A SICK MAN TO THE EARLIEST SNOWDROP. Of Autumn, when the flowers were all gone past, 'Life! Life! I shall not die!' brake from my mouth. It was probably the reference in the text to the snowdrop that suggested the exquisitely tender episode in Mr. Buchanan's Poet Andrew, which manifestly depicts the brief sad life of David Gray. Age cannot wither such poetry as that in which Andrew's father, the simple-hearted handloom weaver, tells the story of his son's death (Idyls and Legends of Inverburn, 1865, p. 59): 'One Sabbath day The last of winter, for the caller air Was drawing sweetness from the bark of trees- A snowdrop blooming underneath a birk, And gladly pluckt the flower to carry home Saying nought, Into his hand I put the year's first flower, .. He smiled..and at the smile, I know not why, It swam upon us in a frosty pain, The end was come at last, at last, and Death DD Dabid Gray. We gazed on Andrew, call'd him by his name, Like one that gladly murmurs to himsel' "Out of the Snow, the Snowdrop-out of Death Comes Life;" then closed his eyes and made a moan, The following tribute in sonnet-form to David Gray's memory from the pen of another living writer, originally printed in Hedderwick's Miscellany, 7 March, 1863, will fittingly close our selection from Luggie's poet. (A Scholar's Day-Dream, Sonnets, and Other Poems, 1870, p. 190): PAGE IN MEMORIAM' DAVID GRAY. Oh, rare young soul! Thou wast of such a mould As could not bear the poet's painful dower! Death gently hushed the harp, lest storm or shower- In those sweet notes-and sad as sweet they seem- Oliver Madox Brown. 234-CCCCLXIII. descries: used in the old sense = marks, points out. From The Dwale Bluth, Hebditch's Legacy, and other Literary Remains of Oliver Madox Brown, Author of Gabriel Denver.' Edited by William M. Rossetti and F. Hueffer. With a Memoir and Two Portraits: 1876. The editors note that the sonnet was found prefixed to the first MS. of 'The Black Swan,' a tale written in the winter of 1871-2 and published in an altered form under the title of 'Gabriel Denver,' in 1873; and that there were duplicate readings to several of the lines. They record also that even some years earlier, while in his fourteenth year, and before it had ever been supposed by his family that he so much as understood the meaning of the word sonnet, this truly marvellous boy' had produced a number of sonnets, which he unfortunately destroyed ‘in a fit of morbid irritability or bashfulness caused by their being shown to a few friends. One of these, however, written for a picture by Mrs. Stillman (then Miss Spartali), and printed on the gilt of the frame, has survived. It is as follows: Leaning against the window, rapt in thought, Of what sweet past do thy soft brown eyes dream, Or dost thou think of one that comes not near, And whose false heart, in thine, thine own doth chide? INDEX OF AUTHORS WITH DATES OF BIRTH AND DEATH The Roman numerals denote the numbers in the Text, the figures the ALEXANDER, William, Earl of Sterline (1580-1640) 322, 323 ALFORD, Henry (1810-1871) CCCCXIX-CCCCXX AYTON, Robert (1570-1638) 323 BAMPFYLDE, John Codrington Warwick (1754-1796) 393, 394 BARNES, Barnabe (1568-9-1609) CVIII-CIX, 277, 284, 299, 305, 306 BARNFIELD, Richard (1574-1627) 300 BEAUMONT, John (1582-3-1627) 247 BEDDOES, Thomas Lovell (1803-1849) CCCXLVII BELL, Henry Glassford (1805-1874) CCCLVII-CCCLVIII BEST, Charles (temp. Elizabeth) 254 BLANCHARD, Samuel Laman (1804-1845) CCCXLVIII-CCCL BOWLES, William Lisle (1762-1850) CLXX-CLXXII, 363 BRETON, Nicholas (1555-1624) 302 BROWN, Oliver Madox (1855-1874) CCCCLXIII, 451 BROWNE, William (1588 ?-1643 ?) CXXXIII-CXXXV, 273, 333, 334, 335 BROWNING, Elizabeth Barrett (1809-1861) CCCxcvii-ccccxvшII BRYDGES, Samuel Egerton (1762-1837) CLXIX BURNS, James Drummond (1823-1864) CCCCXLI BYRON, George Gordon Noel (1788-1824) CCLXIII. CHAPMAN, George (1557-1634) XL, 263 CLARE, John (1793—1864) CCLXXXIV-CCXCIII CLARKE, Charles Cowden (1787-1877) 418 CLOUGH, Arthur Hugh (1819-1861) CCCCXXXIII COLERIDGE, Hartley (1796—1849) CCCXVII-CCCXXXIV, 427, 428, 431 COLERIDGE, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834) CCXXXVI-CCXXXIX, 362, 391 COLERIDGE, Sara (1803-1852) 399 COLLINS, Mortimer (1827-1876) CCCCXLVII CONSTABLE, Henry (1555-1610 ?) XXXV-XXXVIII, 259 COWPER, William (1731-1800) CLXIII, 357 |