WILLIAM FINLAY.
William Finlay was the son of an operative shawl manufacturer in Paisley, where he was born in 1792. He received a classical education at the Grammar-school, and was afterwards apprenticed to his father's trade. For a period of twenty years he prosecuted the labours of the loom; but finding the occupation injurious to his health, he accepted employment in the cotton mills of Duntocher. He afterwards obtained a situation in a printing-office in Paisley, where he remained during eight years. Ultimately, he was employed at Nethercraigs' bleachfield, at the base of Gleniffer braes, about two miles to the south of Paisley. He died of fever on the 5th November 1847, leaving a family of five children.
Finlay was in the practice of contributing verses to the local prints. In 1846, he published a duodecimo volume, entitled, "Poems, Humorous and Sentimental." His poetical characteristics are simplicity and pathos, combined with considerable power of satirical drollery. Delighting in music, and fond of society, he was occasionally led to indulge in excesses, of which, at other times, he was heartily ashamed, and which he has feelingly lamented in some of his poems. Few Scottish poets have more touchingly depicted the evils of intemperance.
THE BREAKING HEART.
I mark'd her look of agony,
I heard her broken sigh,
I saw the colour leave her cheek,
The lustre leave her eye;
I saw the radiant ray of hope
Her sadden'd soul forsaking;
And, by these tokens, well I knew
The maiden's heart was breaking.
It is not from the hand of Heaven
Her bitter grief proceeds;
'Tis not for sins that she hath done,
Her bosom inly bleeds;
'Tis not death's terrors wrap her soul
In shades of dark despair,
But man—deceitful man—whose hand
A thorn hath planted there.
THE AULD EMIGRANT'S FAREWEEL TO SCOTLAND.
Land of my fathers! night's dark gloom
Now shades thee from my view—
Land of my birth! my hearth, my home,
A long, a last adieu!
Thy sparkling streams, thy plantin's green,
That ring with melodie,
Thy flowery vales, thy hills and dales,
Again I 'll never see.