The Dublin University Magazine

POEMS BY ALEXANDER BETHUNE, LABOURER.

THE following poems have been sent to us by Mr. Bethune, the Author of Tales and Sketches of the Scottish Peasantry. We willingly give insertion to them; they do not display much pomp of language, or glowing ornament of imagery, but there is about them a fidelity to truth and nature rarely met with, and which finds its way at once to the heart. Such poetry we

shall always receive with pleasure; and we hail Mr. Bethune's productions as an additional illustration, if any were needed, of the truth that genius is of no condition, and that the true spirit of poetry may no less animate the bosom of the humble labouring man under his cottage roof, than that of the prince in his palace.

LINES ON SEEING A MOUNTAIN DAISY IN FLOWER, NOVEMBER, 2ND, 1834.

There is a rock where oft I pass,
A shapeless and unsightly mass
Of grey and grizzly stone,
And pools of plashy water stand,
And heaps of rubbish lie at hand,
Unnoticed and unknown.

But in the shelter of a clift,

Which the rude miner's blast has left,
A mountain daisy blooms;

And there its breast of snowy whiteness,
Tipp'd with a tinge of purple brightness,
That dreary spot illumes.

And there it drinks the scanty ray
Of chill November's churlish day,
Nor more seems to desire;
Finding in that lone nook of earth,
What gave its lonely blossom birth,
All that its needs require.

When last I saw that lowly flower,
The dreary midnight's drenching shower
Had weigh'd its bosom down;
I watch'd it till the drops of rain
Were dried, and then it rose again,
By efforts of its own.

And courting no admiring gaze,
Nor struggling its meek head to raise
Above its humble lot;

An emblem of Content it seem'd,

As the faint sun-rays round it stream'd,
To cheer that barren spot.

And as I thought upon this flower-
The chilly morn and midnight shower-
1, moralizing, said,

"If man his interest could discern,
From these he might a lesson learn,
His future life to aid.

Though youth's illusions may depart,
And baff'd feelings leave his heart,
Forsaken and forlorn ;

• Fraser and Co. Edinburgh, 1838.

Although he feel for other's woes,
Or see his friends become his foes,
'Twere vain to sit and mourn.

The power which makes the daisy bloom,
Where the grey rocks above it gloom,
Amid the wint'ry air;

That power may arm the human heart,
To turn aside affection's dart,

Or teach the wound to bear.

Even I might gather something here,
To cheat the present, or to cheer
Some yet more gloomy scene,

If I, like that meek flow'r, could bend
To passing storms, and when they end,
Forget that they had been,

Though ills from which I cannot fly
At every turn around me lie-

Though cold and cheerless there

The shadows of delusions past,

Like barren rocks, which brave the blast,
Stand desolate and bare.

Yet even the chill November-sky,
Which wraps the sons of Poverty,
Some sunny gleams will spare;
And those who yield, when flight is vain,
And strife produces only pain,

May bask a moment there.

Thus I, within the narrow sphere

Which fortune has assigned me here,

May pass life's little day,

And sometimes aim at doing good,
And sometimes catch a brighter mood,
Till it hath pass'd away.

THE ORPHAN'S SOLILOQUY.

Alas! how lonely I am left on earth:
Those who were bound to me by holy ties

Of love, and truth, and worth, and blood, and birth,
Have vanish'd all from my admiring eyes;
And none remain to listen to my sighs-
Or lean with kind condoling look to hear
The grief which hidden in my bosom lies,
Which I could pour into a parent's ear,

And feel my soul composed by mild compassion's tear.

II.

But where is now my dear and constant mother? My patient, tender, faithful father ?—Where

The soothing pity of my gentle brother?

The kind compassion of my sister fair?
All, all have fled, and left me to despair!

Or do they watch me still, and with me grieve,
And long again my lowly lot to share?
And with their sympathy my soul relieve,
And round my heart the web of fond affection weave?

III.

Oh, no! they grieve not. Yet I can believe
That from their high and holy state of bliss
They hear my sighs, and see my bosom heave,
And on my lips impress their spiritual kiss :—
I will indulge in hopes and dreams like this;
Away despair!-my kindred still are near;
They know me, see me, hear me, love me-yes,
And bless me still, though I have ceased to hear
The voiceless words they breathe in my corporeal ear.

IV.

And wherefore should I meditate and mourn
On the delights and joys of days gone by?
Be hush'd, my yearning heart! I will adorn
My brows with roses, and my sorrows dry;
For I am still in that society

Of faithful friends, where once I loved to be;
And, though the dimness of my mortal eye
Their immaterial forms no more can see,

Yet they behold my thoughts, and dwell and move with me.

I'll weep no more, for friends can never part;
And I will think upon each blessed name,
"With a composed and all enduring" heart:
Their love, their sympathy are still the same--
The only change is in the earthly frame;
And I will wait till heaven's eternal lord,

Who bowed his head for me to death and shame,

Shall to my soul a pass from pain afford,

And break, with pard'ning love life's frail mysterious cord!

VI.

Oh then, how happily my soul shall fly,

From this cold earth and its encumbering clay!
How lightly, brightly, shall it soar on high,
To those mild regions of unclouded day,
Where all my friends rejoice in white array;
And, crown'd with Mercy's beamy glory, wave
Celestial palms which never shall decay-
Trophies of victory which that conqu'ror gave,

Who died, their souls and mine from death and doubt to save!

LINES COMPosed during tHE ANNULAR Eclipse of the SUN, MAY 15Tн, 1836.

Vast centre of this sailing earth!

Bright emblem of the living God!

Who from creation's day of birth

Hast ploughed along heaven's azure road!

Thou all pervading orb of day!
Soul of unquench'd etherial fire!

What ails thee now? What dims thy ray ?

As if full soon it would expire.

Why shedd'st thou that pale yellow light,
Like glimmer of sepulchral lamp,
Or moon-beam of the northern night,
Which shines on cold Siberia's swamp ?

Thy face with every moment fades_
Still faint and fainter grows thy ray-
A solemn veil heaven's beauty shades,
And sickens o'er the brow of day.

The birds appalled and silent sit,
The cattle gaze in wonder lost,
The wild-fowl from the waters flit,
Although no storm their breast has cross'd

And why, I ask, the sudden change,
From skies so blue and so unclouded,
To this unearthly gloom-and strange,
Dim light in which the world is shrouded.

Hath stern ambition's bloody hand
Stamp'd with injustice, wrong, and scath,
The features of some smiling land,
Dooming the innocent to death?

Or is it those with iron gripe

Who hold the slave in chains accurs'dFor whom the cloud of vengeance ripe Is ready on the world to burst.

And doth thy pale and shrouded ray
Portend, as in the days gone by,
Famine, and pest, and bloody fray,
And wreck to many a monarchy-

Dire monuments of bleaching bones,

And nations drown'd in seas of blood

Cities in flames and burning thrones,

Or the hot earthquake's lava flood

Or ocean with his countless waves

Roll'd headlong o'er the prostrate shore

Or islands in the deep sea-caves

Sunk down at once to rise no more?

Thou hast no power-the time is past
When Superstition's frenzied eye
Could in the dread eclipse forecast,
War, death, and desolation nigh.

But, though thy darkened form no more
Can strike the nations with amaze,

Or make them tremble as before

Beneath thy pale and shrouded rays:

Although no more in these we read

The fancied doom and dire portend, The time is fix'd-the hour decreed

At which all earthly things must end.

And thrones and empires crumble down,
And tombs and pyramids decay,
The same as erst when in thy frown
Each nation read its own dismay.

And the same potent hand which roll'd
Thee forth upon the frozen space,
Where the great anarch Chaos old
Held all things in his void embrace-

That hand still holds and governs all,
Directing when to come and go,
From the poor fluttering sparrow's fall,
To the vast empire's overthrow.

ELLIS' TREATISE ON INSANITY.*

OF all disorders to which man is subject those which more immediately affect the conscious and thinking portion of our compound nature, are the most interesting, whether from the awful and afflicting character of their symptoms and effects; from the mysterious agency of mind of which they are the apparent affections; or from the general terror, curiosity, and lamentable ignorance which still continue to pervade the community on the subject. In the most apparent freedom from bodily complaint; in the midst of outward prosperity; and in the possession of all that human wishes seek as the means of happiness; while all that the surrounding observation of friends, relations, and acquaintances can observe, seems to exclude all care, already may the intellectual part, the seat of happiness or sorrow, have become the cell of unsuspected, objectless, and secret-working disquietudes; of dark suspicions, awful fears, corrod ing and embittered sentiments, and of fantasies formless, nameless, and ghastly, which, having no corresponding object in reality, can as effectually exclude all joy, and plunge their unhappy slave in miseries without remedy or refuge, as if calamity had exhausted its quiver upon the victim of disease, desertion, and want. The mind, of which the most reflecting persons think so much and know so little, is become the subject of diseased action, which, however it begins, or by whatever instrumentality it works, is yet in its

most apparent indications spiritual; a fearful and affecting transformation has taken place in the frame of our inimortal part, so great that in its more extreme workings, the moral identity seems to have departed: the friend we loved stands before us a blighted image of all we regarded and respected; as changed in thought as if some spirit of evil had taken possession of the heart and brain.

But there are, if less fearfully interesting, yet more seriously important uses for a general and wide-spread practical information on the subject of insanity. We shall mention some of the most prominent. The first indications of this hapless disorder have so insidious a resemblance to the same operations of the mind, under the action of real causes, that the impression made on the observer, is frequently that such causes exist, and the person thus affected, appears in the light of one either affected by circumstances known to himself, or actuated by passions excited by supposed accidents; conse quently, instead of the allowance and the prudent recourse to remedial steps, the friends and intimates of the person so affected, will, according to circumstances, believe and act on his representations, pity his afflictions, as having their source in fact, or despise his meanness, folly, or depraved disposition; and the case will proceed until it reaches a state no longer to be mistaken. On this head we have already hazarded some remarks, to which, as

A Treatise on the Nature, Symptoms, Causes, and Treatment of Insanity, with Practical Observations on Lunatic Asylums, &c. &c. by Sir W. C. Ellis, M.D. London, Holdsworth, 1838.

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The Dublin University Magazine, Volym 12