Sonnet. Written, on reading the Author of the Poor Man's Sabbath's Ode to Labour
SONNET.
Written, on reading the Author of the Poor Man’s Sabbath’s Ode to Labour. Ah! Generosity where art thou fled? Sleep’st thou in dust with philanthropic Dale, While Worth in indigence is left to wail, And merit finds neglect her only mead? No – thou hast wing’d thy flight far south the Tweed; Transported Bloomfield from a steril soil, Where gloomy spleen, dark born of want and toil, Might crampt his genius, crush’d his rural reed. O, let me woo thee back to Clutha’s plain! I’ll lead thee to the Poor Man’s Poet’s cell, Who, tho’ his strains with sweetest ardours swell, Still toils, his tender offspring to maintain. Return, kind Godess, hear my supliant call! ’Tis thine to raise a Struthers from his stall. R. Tannahill [Footnote] To-day we are privileged (by the courtesy of the Paisley Burns Club) to give a photographic facsimile of a sonnet by the poet Tannahill, “written on reading the author of the Poor Man’s Sabbath (Struther’s) Ode to Labour.” The club recently became possessors of a gift of holograph MS. from Mr. William Ormiston Roy, of Montreal, and included was a letter with which was enclosed the sonnet to Mr. John Struthers, Gorbals. The persons alluded to in the sonnet are David Dale, who was a famous pioneer of the cotton industry; and Bloomfield and Struthers, humble and struggling poets like Tannahill himself. The document should be of greatest interest to admirers of Tannahill, and to those interested in literature generally. It will be recalled that there was reproduced in the “Gazette” a few weeks ago an article which the Rev. James Thomson contributed to “The Scots Magazine” dealing with this “find.” |