DAFT JAMIE.
The following is a chap-book version of the ballad quoted at pp. [205-6].
O! dark was the midnight when Hare fled away,
Not a star in the sky gave him one cheering ray,
But still now and then, would the blue lightnings glare,
And some strange cries assail’d him, like shrieks of despair.
Over vale, over hill, I will watch thee for ill;
I will haunt all thy wanderings and follow thee still.
But, lo! as the savage ran down the wild glen,
For no place did he fear like the dwellings of men,
Where the heath lay before him all dismal and bare,
The ghost of Daft Jamie appeared to him there.
Over vale, &c.
I am come, said the shade, from the land of the dead,
Though there is for Jamie no grass covered bed,
Yet I’m come to remind you of deeds that are past,
And to tell you that justice will find you at last.
Over vale, &c.
O! Hare, thou hast been a dark demon of blood,
But vengeance shall chase thee o’er field and o’er flood;
Though you fly away from the dwellings of men,
The shades of thy victims shall rise in thy den.
Over vale, &c.
When night falls on the world, O! how can you sleep,
In your dreams do you ne’er see my poor mother weep?
Sadly she wept; but, O! long shall she mourn,
E’er poor wandering Jamie from the grave shall return.
Over vale, &c.
From the grave, did I say, and though calm is the bed
Where slumber is dreamless, the home of the dead,
Where friends may lament, there sorrow may be,
Yet no grave rises as green as the world for me.
Over vale, &c.
O! Hare, go to shelter thy fugutive head,
In some land that is not of the living or dead;
For the living against thee may justly combine,
And the dead must despise such a spirit as thine.
Over vale, &c.
O! Hare fly away, but this world cannot be
The place of abode to a demon like thee,
There is gall in your heart—poison is in your breath,
And the glare of your eyes is as fearful as death.
Over vale, &c.
When the blue lightnings flash’d through the glen, and it shone,
And there rose a wild cry, and there heaved a deep groan,
As the Ghost of the innocent boy disappear’d,
But his shrieks down the glen, in the night breeze were heard.
Over vale, &c.
THE RESURRECTIONISTS.
In No. XXIX of The Emmet, an old Glasgow periodical, published on Saturday, 18th October, 1823, is the following:—
“The Resurrectionists, a Tale (in Blind Alek verse) Humbly Inscribed to the Editor of the ‘Glasgow Chronicle.’ Printed for John Smith, 25, Gallowgate.
“Original.
“This elegant poem was put into our hands as we were going to press, so we must be excused for passing it over more slightly than such a performance deserves. In fact we have only room for a single extract. It opens as follows, in a style which leaves Lewis, and Ratcliffe, and all our writers on the horrible, far in the rear. John Starke himself, with his ‘Thesaurus of Horror,’ never penned anything so deliciously frightful.
’Twas a cold winter night, and dark was the clouds,
And the dead men lay quietly still in their shrouds;
The worms revelled sweetly their eyeholes among,—
It was a rout night, and there was a great throng:
Some fed upon brains, others fed upon liver,
Had we e’er such a feast, all cried out, O! no, never.
“We suspect our readers will think we have given them enough of this feast; if they pant for more of it, let them turn to the work itself. More disgusting trash never emanated from the press. Blind Alek is a Milton compared with the blockhead who would sit down and pen such a mass of loathesomeness.... Lord preserve us from this imitator of Blind Alek.