"MARY, WEEP NO MORE FOR ME."
(Vol. viii., p. 385.)
For the following information respecting the author, and the original, I am indebted to the Lady's Magazine of 1820, from which I copied it several years ago.
Mr. Joseph Lowe, born at Kenmore in Galloway, 1750, the son of a gardener, at fourteen apprenticed to a weaver, by persevering diligence in the pursuit of knowledge, was enabled in 1771 to enter himself a student in Divinity in the University of Edinburgh. On his return from college he became tutor in the family of a gentleman, Mr. McGhie of Airds, who had several beautiful daughters, to one of whom he was attached, though it never was their fate to be united. Another of the sisters, Mary, was engaged to a surgeon, Mr. Alexander Miller. This young gentleman was unfortunately lost at sea, an event immortalised by Mary's Dream. The author was unhappy in his marriage with a lady of Virginia, whither he had emigrated, and died in 1798. This poem was originally composed in the Scottish dialect, and afterwards received the polished English form from the hand of its author.
"MARY'S DREAM.
"The lovely moon had climb'd the hill,
Where eagles big aboon the Dee,
And, like the looks of a lovely dame,
Brought joy to every body's ee:
A' but sweet Mary deep in sleep,
Her thoughts on Sandy far at sea;
A voice drapt saftly on her ear—
'Sweet Mary, weep nae mair for me!'
"She lifted up her waukening een,
To see from whence the sound might be,
And there she saw young Sandy stand,
Pale, bending on her his hollow ee.
'O Mary dear, lament nae mair!
I'm in death's thraws aneath the sea:
Thy weeping makes me sad in bliss,
Sae Mary, weep nae mair for me!
"'The wind slept when we left the bay,
But soon it waked and raised the main;
And God he bore us down the deep—
Wha strave wi' him, but strave in vain.
He stretch'd his arm and took me up,
Tho' laith I was to gang but thee:
I look frae heaven aboon the storm,
Sae Mary, weep nae mair for me!
"'Take aff thae bride-sheets frae thy bed,
Which thou hast faulded down for me,
Unrobe thee of thy earthly stole—
I'll meet in heaven aboon wi' thee.'
Three times the gray cock flapp'd his wing,
To mark the morning lift his ee;
And thrice the passing spirit said,
'Sweet Mary, weep nae mair for me!'"
J. W. Thomas.
Dewsbury.