The thochts o' our youth are lichtsome and dear,
Like the strains o' the lute they fa' saft on the ear,
But chiefly the bliss I ha'e shared wi' my Jean
In some love-screenin' shade on a lang winter e'en.
THOMAS YOUNG.
The author of "The Four Pilgrims, or, Life's Mission; and other Poems," a volume of respectable poetry, published at Dundee in 1849, Thomas Young, was born at Tulliebeltane, in the parish of Auchtergaven, Perthshire, in 1815. Receiving an ordinary school education, he accepted, in his twentieth year, a situation in the office of the Dundee Advertiser, where he continued till 1851, when a change occurred in the proprietorship. He now proceeded to New York, where he remained about eighteen months. Disappointed in obtaining a suitable appointment, he sailed for Australia; but the vessel being unable to proceed further than Rio de Janeiro, he there procured a situation, with an annual salary of £300. The climate of Rio proving unfavourable, he afterwards sailed to Australia, where he readily found occupation at Mount Alexander. He has been successful at the gold diggings.
ANTOINETTE; OR, THE FALLS.
By Niagara's flood
Antoinette stood,
And watch'd the wild waves rush on,
As they leapt below
Into vapoury snow,
Or fell into flakes of foam.
The sun's last beams
Fell in golden gleams
On water and wave-girt isle,
And in tinge all fair
Dipp'd the girl's bright hair
And heighten'd her happy smile.
Away—away!
In wild ecstasy
She threads the abyss's brink,
Where waters—black—
Of the cataract
Into drifted snow-waves sink.
A father's eye
Looketh anxiously
On the freaks of his favour'd child,
Till her spirit appals
His soul, and he calls
"Antoinette" in accents wild.