MOIR.

DAVID MACBETH MOIR.

1798-1851.

DR. MOIR was a native of Musselburgh, a town near Edinburgh. His poems over the signature of Delta in Blackwood's Magazine, to which he was a frequent contributor from its commencement, were eagerly read and extensively copied into the journals of both England and America. He was also the author of the "Autobiography of Mansie Waugh," a book of much genuine humor. It was originally published in a series of papers in the columns of Blackwood.

His "Casa Wappy" is one of the most touching and tender effusions in the English language.

He died in his native town, lamented by a large circle of friends and admirers.

The late Lord Jeffrey, in writing to Moir, said of his "Domestic Verses":-"I cannot resist the impulse of thanking you with all my heart for the deep gratification you have afforded me, and the soothing, and, I hope, bettering emotions which you have excited. I am sure that what you have written is more genuine pathos than anything almost I have ever read in verse, and is so tender and true, so sweet and natural, as to make all lower recommendations indifferent."

RECEDED hills afar of softened blue,

Tall bowering trees, through which the sunbeams shoot
Down to the waveless lake, birds ever mute,

And wild flowers all around of every hue-
Sure 'tis a lovely scene. There, knee-deep stand,
Safe from the fierce sun, the overshadowed kine,
And, to the left, where cultivated fields expand,
'Mid tufts of scented thorn the sheep recline,
Lone quiet farmsteads, haunts that ever please;
O how inviting to the traveller's eye

Ye rise on yonder uplands, 'mid your trees
Of shade and shelter! Every sound from these
Is eloquent of peace, in earth and sky,
And pastoral beauty and Arcadian ease.

CASA WAPPY.'

AND hast thou sought thy heavenly home,
Our fond, dear boy-

The realms where sorrow dare not come,

Where life is joy?

Pure at thy death as at thy birth,

Thy spirit caught no taint from earth;
Even by its bliss we mete our death,

Casa Wappy!

Despair was in our last farewell,

As closed thine eye;

Tears of our anguish may not tell

When thou didst die;

Words may not paint our grief for thee,

Sighs are but bubbles on the sea

Of our unfathomed agony,

Casa Wappy!

1 Casa Wappy was the self-conferred pet-name of an infant son of the poet, snatched away

after a very brief illness.

Thou wert a vision of delight

To bless us given;

Beauty embodied to our sight,
A type of heaven:

So dear to us thou wert, thou art
Even less thine own self than a part
Of mine and of thy mother's heart,
Casa Wappy!

Thy bright brief day knew no decline,

"Twas cloudless joy;

Sunrise and night alone were thine,

Beloved boy!

This morn beheld thee blithe and gay,
That found thee prostrate in decay,

And ere a third shone, clay was clay,

Casa Wappy.

Gem of our hearth, our household pride,

Earth's undefiled;

Could love have saved, thou hadst not died,

Our dear, sweet child!

Humbly we bow to Fate's decree;

Yet had we hope that time should see

Thee mourn for us, not us for thee,

Casa Wappy!