ALLAN STEWART.
Allan Stewart, a short-lived poet of no inconsiderable merit, was born in the village of Houston, Renfrewshire, on the 30th January 1812. His father prosecuted the humble vocation of a sawyer. Deprived of his mother in early life, the loss was in some degree repaired by the kind attentions of his maternal aunt, Martha Muir, whose letters on religious subjects have been published. Receiving an ordinary education at school, he followed the trade of a weaver in Paisley. His leisure hours were employed in reading, and in the composition of verses. He died of typhus fever, at Paisley, on the 12th November 1837, in his twenty-sixth year. His "Poetical Remains" were published in 1838, in a thin duodecimo volume, with a well-written biographical sketch from the pen of his friend, Mr Charles Fleming.
Stewart was a person of modest demeanour, and of a thoughtful and somewhat melancholy cast. His verses are generally of a superior order; his songs abound in sweetness of expression and elegance of sentiment.
THE SEA-BOY.
Air—"The Soldier's Tear."
The storm grew faint as daylight tinged
The lofty billows' crest;
And love-lit hopes, with fears yet fringed,
Danced in the sea-boy's breast.
And perch'd aloft, he cheer'ly sung
To the billows' less'ning roar—
"O Ellen, so fair, so free, and young,
I 'll see thee yet once more!"
And O what joy beam'd in his eye,
When, o'er the dusky foam,
He saw, beneath the northern sky,
The hills that mark'd his home!
His heart with double ardour strung,
He sung this ditty o'er—
"O Ellen, so fair, so free, and young,
I 'll see thee yet once more!"
Now towers and trees rise on his sight,
And many a dear-loved spot;
And, smiling o'er the blue waves bright,
He saw young Ellen's cot.
The scenes on which his memory hung
A cheerful aspect wore;
He then, with joyous feeling, sung,
"I 'll see her yet once more!"
The land they near'd, and on the beach
Stood many a female form;
But ah! his eye it could not reach
His hope in many a storm.
He through the spray impatient sprung,
And gain'd the wish'd-for shore;
But Ellen, so fair, so sweet, and young,
Was gone for evermore!