Extempore Effusion, upon reading, in the Newcastle Journal, the
notice of the death of the poet, James Hogg.
"When first descending from the moorland,
I saw the stream of Yarrow glide
Along a fair and open valley,
The Ettrick Shepherd was my guide.
"When last along its banks I wandered,
Through groves that had begun to shed
Their golden leaves upon the pathways,
My steps the Border Minstrel led.
"The mighty minstrel breathes no longer,
'Mid moldering ruins low he lies:
And death upon the braes of Yarrow
Has closed the shepherd poet's eyes.
"Nor has the rolling year twice measured
From sign to sign his steadfast course,
Since every mortal power of Coleridge
Was frozen at its marvelous source.
"The rapt-one of the godlike forehead,
The heaven-eyed creature sleeps in death;
And Lamb, the frolic and the gentle,
Has vanished from his lonely hearth.
"Like clouds that robe the mountain summits,
Or waves that own no curbing hand,
How fast has Brother followed Brother,
From sunshine to the sunless land!
"Yet I, whose lids from infant slumbers
Were earlier raised, remain to hear
A timid voice that asks in whispers,
'Who next will drop and disappear?'
"Our haughty life is crowned with darkness,
Like London with its own black wreath,
On which with thee, O Crabbe, forth-looking,
I gazed from Hampstead's breezy heath.
"As if but yesterday departed,
Thou, too, art gone before; yet why
For ripe fruit, seasonably gathered,
Should frail survivors heave a sigh?
"No more of old romantic sorrows,
The slaughtered youth and love-lorn maid;
With sharper grief is Yarrow smitten,
And Ettrick mourns with her their shepherd dead."
These extracts throw a deal of light on the peculiar character of
Hogg's mind. Simple, candid to an astonishment, vain without an
attempt to conceal it, sensitive to an extreme, with such a
development of self-esteem that no rebuffs or ridicule could daunt
him, and full of talent and fancy. But, to estimate the extent of all
these qualities, you must read his prose as well as his poetry; and
these, considering how late he began to write, and that he did not die
very old, are pretty voluminous. During the greater part of his
literary life he was a very popular contributor to various magazines.
Of his collected works he gives us this list.