od fortune to be celebrated by two
different poets. For some account of Miss Morrison, now Mrs Murdoch, see
vol. iii. p. 233.
A SIGH AND A SMILE.
WELSH AIR--_"Sir William Watkin Wynne."_
From Beauty's soft lip, like the balm of its roses,
Or breath of the morning, a sigh took its flight;
Nor far had it stray'd forth, when Pity proposes
The wanderer should lodge in this bosom a night.
But scarce had the guest, in that peaceful seclusion,
His lodging secured, when a conflict arose,
Each feeling was changed, every thought was delusion,
Nor longer my breast knew the calm of repose.
They say that young Love is a rosy-cheek'd bowyer,
At random the shafts from his silken string fly,
But surely the urchin of peace is destroyer,
Whose arrows are dipp'd in the balm of a sigh.
O yes! for he whisper'd, "To Beauty's shrine hie thee;
There worship to Cupid, and wait yet awhile;
A cure she can give, with the balm can supply thee,
The wound from a sigh can be cured by a smile."
JOHN GOLDIE.
A short-lived poet and song-writer of some promise, John Goldie was born
at Ayr on the 22d December 1798. His father, who bore the same Christian
name, was a respectable shipmaster. Obtaining an ample education at the
academy of his native town, he became, in his fifteenth year, assistant
to a grocer in Paisley; he subsequently held a similar situation in a
stoneware and china shop in Glasgow. In 1821 he opened, on his own
account, a stoneware establishment at Ayr; but proving unfortunate in
business, he abandoned the concerns of trade. From his boyhood being
devoted to literature he now resolved on its cultivation as a means of
support. Already known as an occasional contributor, both in prose and
verse, to the public press, he received the appointment of assistant
editor of the _Ayr Courier_, and shortly after obtained the entire
literary superintendence of that journal. In 1821, he published a
pamphlet of respectable verses; and in the following year appeared as
the author of a duodecimo volume of "Poems and Songs," which he
inscribed to the Ettrick Shepherd. Of the compositions in the latter
publication, the greater portion, he intimates in the preface, "were
composed at an early age, chiefly betwixt the years of sixteen and
twenty;" and as the production of a very young man, the volume is
altogether creditable to his genius and taste.
Deprived
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