William Sharp (Fiona Macleod): A Memoir Compiled by His Wife Elizabeth A. Sharp

by Elizabeth A. Sharp

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“We all are wind-harps casemented on Earth,
And every breath of God that falls may fetch
Some dimmest echo of a faint refrain
From even the worst strung of all of us.”

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“Oh, I have lain upon a river’s brink
And drank deep, deep of all the glory near,
Until my soul in unison did beat
With all things round me: I was at the root,
The common root of life from which all flow,
And when thus far could enter unto all;
I look’d upon a rose and seemed to grow
A bud into a bloom, I watched a tree
And was the life that quicken’d the green leaves,
I saw the waters swirling and became
The law of their wild course, and in the clouds
I felt my spirit wand’ring over heaven.
I did identify myself with aught
That rose before me, and communion held.

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Death is not only change, or sleep; it is
God’s seal to sanctify the soul’s advance.”

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In the beginning of 1875 he made various experiments in rhymed metre, all equally serious in subject and stiff in handling; but in the latter part of the year he wrote several little songs in a lighter vein and happier manner.

The following year brought a fresh change in his circumstances, and placed him face to face with the serious questions of practical means of living. His father had been in bad health for some months, and he himself developed disquieting symptoms of chest trouble. I had been in Italy during the three spring months, and was overjoyed on my return to hear that we and my uncle’s family were to spend August at Dunoon in neighbouring houses. On arriving there we found my uncle in an alarming condition and his son looking extremely delicate. Nevertheless there were many happy days spent there—and rambling over the hills, boating and sailing on the lochs, in talking over our very vague prospects, in reading and discussing his poems. Of these he had several more to show me, chief among them being an idyll “Beatrice,” dedicated to me, and a lyrical drama “Ariadne in Naxos” which excited in me the greatest admiration and pride. Toward the middle of the month my uncle’s condition grew hopeless, and on the 20th he died. His death was a great shock to his son, whose health gave way: consumption was feared (as it proved, causelessly) and in the autumn he was ordered a voyage to Australia.

In September I was taken by my mother to Aberdeenshire, and thus I had no opportunity of seeing William again, and the last thing I heard of him, when he had left Scotland in a sailing ship, was a gloomy prediction made by an old relative to my mother: “Ah, that poor nephew of yours, Willie Sharp, he’ll never live to reach Australia.”