Though no earthly friend is near.
For his poem, “Halls of Holyrood,” Mr. McLachlan, in a world-wide competition, won the prize offered some years ago by the Glasgow Workman newspaper, for a national song for Scotland. In 1863 he was appointed by the Canadian government to lecture throughout Great Britain in favor of emigration to Canada. He has also lectured in the principal Canadian towns and villages on various subjects. He speaks with much earnestness and simplicity. As a poet, we would say, Mr. McLachlan has written many pretty musical pieces, while all his work evinces much force, fervor, and simplicity. Here is a line of great beauty that he gives birth to when he speaks of the humming bird as
Wandering spirit of the flowers.
And here is a pretty stanza from “Indian Summer”:
Down from the blue the sun has driven,
And stands between the earth and heaven,
In robes of smouldering flame;
A smoking cloud before him hung,
A mystic veil, for which no tongue
Of earth can find a name;