One who has wrote and sung the lays of the poor,
One who has loved more than gold, field, wood, and moor.”
Responsive to the poet’s request a local bard wrote, and the Herald of the following week contained “His Epitaph,” in these words:—
“Toil over, Light snuffed out, himself a Shade,
For evermore removed from pitiless chaff,
Hic jacet!—A judicious reader made
(Excuse his tears) this touching epitaph.”
Poets there have been, too, who were their own most merciless censors. Robert Chambers tells that when the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland determined on extending their body of psalmody, they addressed a circular to the clergy, praying that those who were so inclined would compose paraphrases of scripture, and transmit them to Edinburgh for the inspection of the Assembly, that a proper selection might be made for use. A very old man, and very primitive minister in Caithness, was roused by this request from prosaic lethargy of a whole lifetime, and felt a latent spark of poetry suddenly arise in his bosom. So instantaneous was the effect of this inspiration, that on the very Sunday after he had received the Assembly’s circular, he had prepared a paraphrase which he determined to read aloud to his congregation. The first verse ran as follows:—
“The Deil shall ryve them a’ in rags,
That wicked are in vain;