Poems by David Gray (1864). Kessinger, 2010. Courtesy Amazon.com.
David Gray (January 29, 1838 - December 3, 1861) was a Scottish poet.[1]
Life[]
Overview[]
Gray was the son of a hand-loom weaver of Dumbartonshire. He gave early promise at school, was destined for the service of the Church, and was for 4 years at Glasgow University. while he maintained himself by teaching. His earliest poems appeared in the Glasgow Citizen. In 1860, however, he went with his friend Robert Buchanan to London, where he soon fell into consumption. He was befriended by Mr. Monckton Milnes, afterwards Lord Houghton, but after a sojourn in the South of England, returned home to die. His chief poem, The Luggie (the river of his birthplace) contains much beautiful description; but his genius reached its highest expression in a series of 30 sonnets written in full view of an early death and blighted hopes, and bearing the title, In the Shadow. They breathe a spirit of the deepest melancholy unrelieved by hope.[2]
Youth and education[]
Gray was born at Merkland, Kirkintilloch, Dumbartonshire. He was the eldest of 8, his father being a hand-loom weaver.[1]
After leaving the parish school, he became a pupil-teacher in Glasgow.[1]
His parents, observing his fondness for study and his exceptional cleverness, resolved to educate him for the church, and through their self-denial and his own exertions as a pupil teacher and private tutor, he was able, after receiving the rudiments of education at the parish school of Kirkintilloch, to complete a course of 4 sessions at the University of Glasgow.[3]
Career[]
Gray's parents wished him to be a Free church minister, but he became a contributor to the poet's corner of the Glasgow Citizen, and resolved to devote himself to literature. He made various metrical experiments — some of them in the manner of Keats, and another after the dramatic method of Shakespeare — and then settled to the composition of his idyllic poem, The Luggie, named after the stream flowing past his birthplace.[1]
His closest companion at this time was Robert Buchanan, also a poet; and in May 1860 the pair agreed to proceed to London, with the idea of finding some kind of employment in connection with literature.[3] An expression of friendly interest in his work by Monckton Milnes (afterwards Lord Houghton) was what induced Gray to go to London. Milnes strongly urged his return to Scotland and his profession, but, finding Gray resolved on staying, gave him some light literary work.[1]
Soon his health became troublesome, and a severe cold (probably contracted in Hyde Park, where he spent his first London night) gradually settled on his lungs. His friend Buchanan, who shared in his London hardships, tells his brief, pathetic story in David Gray, and other essays, and worthily embalms their friendship in "Poet Andrew" and "To David in Heaven." Another friend with whom Gray corresponded much, and whose exertions led to the publication of his poems, was Sydney Dobell.[1]
After revisiting Scotland, Gray went south again for the milder climate, staying first at Richmond, and then (through the intervention of Milnes) in the hospital at Torquay. Finding his health no better, and becoming hysterically nervous, he determined on going home at all hazards, and he returned finally to Merkland, January 1861. Lingering through that year, he wrote a series of sonnets, with the general title In the Shadows.[1]
He died on 3 December 1861, having the previous day been gladdened through seeing a proof of a page of The Luggie, which was finally being printed.[1]
Writing[]
The Luggie, with its sense of natural beauty, and its promise of didactic and descriptive power, constitutes Gray's chief claim as a poet, but his sonnets are remarkable in substance, and several of them are felicitous in structure and expression.[1]
The Luggie, Gray's principal poem, is a kind of reverie in which the scenes and events of his childhood and his early aspirations are mingled with the music of the stream which he celebrates.[3]
The series of sonnets In the Shadows, composed during the latter part of his illness, possess, without the smallest taint of morbidness, a touching and solemn beauty in keeping with the circumstances in which they were written.[3]
Most of his poems necessarily bear traces of immaturity, and lines may frequently be found in them which are mere echoes from Thomson, Wordsworth, or Tennyson, but they possess, nevertheless, the distinct individuality of true genius. They nearly all have a direct or indirect reference to phases of outward nature, and they give evidence of an underlying wealth of imagination and sentiment, of a true and vigorous power of conception, and of a gift of clear and strong, yet subtle and tender, musical utterance, which apparently only required to have been mellowed by time and experience in order to have fashioned a poetry which would have given him an enduring name in English literature.[3]
Recognition[]
Gray was buried in the Auld Aisle Churchyard, Kirkintilloch, where in 1865 a monument was erected by "friends far and near" to his memory.[3] Lord Houghton's interest in Gray was generous and practical to the last, and he wrote the epitaph for his monument.[1]
‘The Luggie and other Poems’ by Gray appeared in 1862, with a memoir by Dr. Hedderwick of the Glasgow Citizen and a valuable prefatory notice by Lord Houghton. An enlarged edition was published in 1874, but unfortunately the editor, Henry Glassford Bell, died before writing his projected introduction to the volume. An appendix contains the speech he delivered at the unveiling of Gray's monument.[1]
Publications[]
Poetry[]
- The Luggie, and other poems (edited by James Hedderwick). Cambridge, UK, & London: Macmillan, 1862
- published in U.S. as Poems. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1864.
- Poetical Works (edited by Henry Glassford Bell). Glasgow: J. Maclehose / London: Macmillan, 1874.
- In the Shadows: A poem in sonnets. Portland, ME: Thomas B. Mosher, 1900; London: Andrew Melrose, 1920
- (edited by John Francis Alexander Heath-Stubbs). London: Hearing Eye, 1991.
Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[4]
See also[]
References[]
Bayne, Thomas Wilson (1890) "Gray, David" in Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 23 London: Smith, Elder, p. 5 . Wikisource, Web, Feb. 10, 2017.
Notes[]
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 Bayne, 5.
- ↑ John William Cousin, "Gray, David," A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, 1910, 166. Web, Jan. 20, 2018.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Gray, David, Encyclopædia Britannica 9th edition, Volume XI, 75. Wikisource, Web, Feb. 10, 2017.
- ↑ Search results = au:David Gray 1861, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Feb. 10, 2017.
External links[]
- Poems
- 2 poems by Gray: "O Winter! Wilt thou never, never go?," "October's gold is dim"
- Gray in A Victorian Anthology, 1837-1895: "The Dear Old Toiling One," "I Die, Being Young," "My Epitaph"
- David Gray at AllPoetry ("A Winter Ramble")
- David Gray at PoemHunter (2 poems)
- David Gray at Poetry Nook (8 poems)
- Books
- David Gray at Amazon.com
- About
- Gray, David in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
- David Gray, poet at Electric Scotland
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Gray, David
|