James Little was born at Glasgow, on the 24th May 1821. His father, a respectable shoemaker, was a claimant, through his maternal grandmother, of the title and estates of the last Marquis of Annandale. With a very limited elementary education, the subject of this notice, at an early age, was called on to work with his father; but soon afterwards he enlisted as a private soldier. After eight years of military life, chiefly passed in North America and the West Indies, he purchased his discharge, and resumed shoemaking in his native city. In 1852 he proceeded to the United States, but subsequently returned to Glasgow. In 1856 he published a small duodecimo volume of meritorious verses, with the title, "Sparks from Nature's Fire." Several songs from his pen have been published, with music, in the "Lyric Gems of Scotland."
OUR NATIVE HILLS AGAIN.
Oh, swiftly bounds our gallant bark
Across the ocean drear,
While manly cheeks are pale wi' grief,
And wet wi' sorrow's tear.
The flowers that spring upon the Clyde
Will bloom for us in vain;
Nae mair wi' lightsome step we 'll climb
Our native hills again.
Amang their glens our fathers sleep,
Where mony a thistle waves;
And roses fair and gowans meek
Bloom owre their lowly graves.
But we maun dree a sadder fate
Far owre the stormy main;
We lang may look, but never see
Our native hills again.
Yet, 'mid the forests o' the west,
When starnies light the sky,
We'll gather round the ingle's side,
And sing o' days gane by;
And sunny blinks o' joy will come
To soothe us when alane,
And aft, in nightly dreams, we'll climb
Our native hills again.
HERE 'S A HEALTH TO SCOTIA'S SHORE.
Music by Alexander Hume.
Sing not to me of sunny shores
Or verdant climes where olives bloom,
Where, still and calm, the river pours
Its flood, 'mid groves of rich perfume;
Give me the land where torrents flash,
Where loud the angry cat'racts roar,
As wildly on their course they dash—
Then here's a health to Scotia's shore.