It is remarkable how often Poetry and Consumption have gone together.
Is there some unsuspected connection, one feels tempted to ask, between
the _bacillus tuberculosis_ and the _cupido carmina scribendi_? The
question is not without interest. Not a few poets “whom the gods love”
have died young. But among all those cut off in early life the figure
of David Gray, author of _The Luggie and other Poems_, seems to me
to stand pathetically alone. _Bacillus tuberculosis_ is usually a
deceptive guest. But in David Gray, _spes phthisica_ was notably absent.
Gray’s poems are inseparably connected with his life. The son of a poor
handloom weaver, he was born near Kirkintilloch in 1838, and died at
the age of twenty-three. By pupil-teaching he supported himself for
four sessions at Glasgow University; then, bent on a literary life, he
turned to London.
He had arranged with his friend, Robert Buchanan, to leave Glasgow at
a certain hour; but, unfortunately missing each other, they travelled
by different trains. On arriving in London alone, the author of _The
Luggie_ wandered aimlessly about for hours. It was a raw, misty
afternoon, and never perhaps did a more disconsolate figure pace the
pavements of the city of his dreams. Carrying a carpet-bag--filled
with MSS.--and with but a few shillings in his pocket, the homeless
poet sauntered about in the mist and rain, till at last, footsore and
weary, he turned into Hyde Park to spend the night. One cannot tell
the thoughts that passed through his mind as he strolled up and down
the dismal Park “from weary chime to chime”; but it is known that he
contracted a violent cold which settled on his lungs, and brought about
the consumption of which he died.
The two friends did not meet until upwards of a week after their
arrival in London. Thereafter they lived together in what Gray calls
“the dear, old, ghastly, bankrupt garret.” Days and nights were spent
in polishing the poems meant to conquer literary London. But the labour
was in vain. He knocked at the doors of many influential editors, but
failed to gain admission.
In the meantime, his disease had made rapid progress. After a brief
residence in the south of England without benefit, Gray returned to
Kirkintilloch to die. “I wish to die there,” he wrote to his mother
from Torquay; and so, in due time--the mere wreck of what he once
was--he turned up at his father’s house, never to leave it alive again.
He lingered for some months, and the thirty sonnets here reprinted were
written while he lay waiting for death.
Through the exertions of friends, his MSS. were sent to the printer;
and, the day before his death, he had the satisfaction of holding in
his hand a specimen page of _The Luggie_ in print. On the following
morning he died. He was laid to rest beside the Luggie, “now numbered
with the streams illustrious in Scottish song.” The year after his
death his poems were given to the world. And thus Fame, which had
spurned the poet during his lifetime, laid her wreath upon his humble
grave.
David Gray’s dying sonnets speak for themselves. Technically they may
not fulfil all the requirements of the perfect sonnet, but they are so
pathetic in their homeliness, so genuine in feeling, and contain such
delicate flights of imaginative fancy that they cannot be read without
unstinted admiration. They touch the heart, cling to the memory, and
are profoundly human. _In the Shadows_ is, I think, the most poignantly
impressive “swan-song” ever written by poet. Sonnet No. 5 pierces the
soul. In anticipation of death the poet describes his broken life,
metaphor after metaphor succeeding each other with almost bewildering
rapidity. Apart from its intrinsic merit, Sonnet No. 11 is interesting
as the last sad memorial of the poet’s friendship with Robert Buchanan.
Especially noteworthy are Sonnets Nos. 12, 16, and 21: No. 12 with its
inspiring lesson of “Sorrow and Death” as ministers to raise humanity
heavenward; No. 16, ending on a note of manly fortitude; and No. 21,
presenting an unforgettable picture of the promise of life’s day
overcast and finally sinking into the gloom of night. In its autumnal
tenderness Sonnet No. 19 is very beautiful. It is a sonnet of rare
loveliness, providing a mournful commentary on the reflection of the
Hebrew prophet that “we all do fade as a leaf.”
Gray’s reverent love of Nature and of his mother runs as an
undercurrent through the whole series. _In the Shadows_ reveals a
personality charming and spiritual, clinging to earth yet resigning
itself to inevitable destiny. It is also unquestionably the work of a
true poetic artist whose sun went down long before noon. And yet, as
an able critic has said, “he lived long enough to give evidence of a
warm heart and a sensitive nature; of a keen sympathy with all that is
true, tender, and beautiful; of poetic insight, and considerable power
of expression. He was born a poet as surely as the skylark is born to
mount and sing.” In conception and execution, in simple pathos and real
sincerity of feeling, his sonnets appeal alike to head and heart. They
strike a note of pity in every compassionate breast, all the deeper
when one remembers that the youthful author, in his own words:
“Died, not knowing what it was to live.”
In the earlier years of his “poor meagre life,” Gray hoped to win an
imperishable name. His poems, when they appeared, met with a generous
reception. Three editions were issued in 1862, 1874, and 1886--copies
of which are now practically unprocurable. In these circumstances I
ventured to suggest to Mr. Melrose the propriety of publishing a new
edition; but, while rejecting the idea, he fixed upon _In the Shadows_
to be issued in an unpretentious form as a separate publication. I most
earnestly trust that Mr. Melrose’s intuition may prove prophetic of a
revived interest in David Gray, and that the intensely human note of
the sonnets, as well as their unusual beauty, may bring that lasting
fame to the poet which he once so confidently anticipated.