THERE 'S A THRILL OF EMOTION.
There 's a thrill of emotion, half-painful, half-sweet,
When the object of untold affection we meet,
But the pleasure remains, though the pang is as brief,
As the touch and recoil of the sensitive leaf.
There 's a thrill of distress, between anger and dread,
When a frown o'er the fair face of beauty is spread;
But she smiles, and away the disturber is borne,
Like sunbeams dispelling the vapours of morn.
There 's a thrill of endearment, all raptures above,
When the pure lip imprints the first fond kiss of love,
Which, like songs of our childhood, to memory clings,
The longest, the last of terrestrial things.
GEORGE MENZIES.
George Menzies was born in the parish of Arbuthnot, Kincardineshire, on the 21st January 1797. His father was an agricultural labourer. On completing his education at a country school, he became, in his fourteenth year, apprentice to a gardener. He prosecuted his vocation in different districts; acted some time as clerk to the contractors of the Forth and Clyde Canal; laboured as a weaver in several towns in the counties of Forfar and Kincardine; and conducted unendowed schools in various localities. In 1833, he emigrated to Canada, where he taught in different seminaries, and afterwards formed a connexion with a succession of public journals. He ultimately became proprietor and editor of the Woodstock Herald newspaper. After a short illness, he died at Woodstock, Canada West, on the 4th March 1847, in his fifty-first year.
Menzies was possessed of good talents and indomitable energy. He wrote respectable verses, though not marked by any decided originality. In 1822, he published, at Forfar, a small volume of poems, entitled, "Poetical Trifles," of which a second and enlarged edition appeared five years afterwards. The whole of his poems, with an account of his life, in a duodecimo volume, were published at Montrose in 1854.