With a more lengthened career, John Bethune would have attained a high reputation, both as an interesting poet and an elegant prose-writer. His genius was versatile and brilliant; of human nature, in all its important aspects, he possessed an intuitive perception, and he was practically familiar with the character and habits of the sons of industry. His tales are touching and simple; his verses lofty and contemplative. In sentiment eminently devotional, his life was a model of genuine piety. His Poems, prefaced by an interesting Memoir, were published by his surviving brother in 1840; and from the profits of a second edition, published in the following year, a monument has been erected over his grave in the churchyard of Abdie.
WITHER'D FLOWERS.
Adieu! ye wither'd flow'rets!
Your day of glory's past;
But your latest smile was loveliest,
For we knew it was your last.
No more the sweet aroma
Of your golden cups shall rise,
To scent the morning's stilly breath,
Or gloaming's zephyr-sighs.
Ye were the sweetest offerings
Which Friendship could bestow—
A token of devoted love
In pleasure or in woe!
Ye graced the head of infancy,
By soft affection twined
Into a fairy coronal
Its sunny brows to bind.
* * * * *
But ah! a dreary blast hath blown
Athwart you in your bloom,
And, pale and sickly, now your leaves
The hues of death assume.
We mourn your vanish'd loveliness,
Ye sweet departed flowers;
For ah! the fate which blighted you
An emblem is of ours.
And though, like you, sweet flowers of earth,
We wither and depart,
And leave behind, to mourn our loss,
Full many an aching heart;
Yet when the winter of the grave
Is past, we hope to rise,
Warm'd by the Sun of Righteousness,
To blossom in the skies.