Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1857-03-12
The Harm OF Scotland.


At the Albany Burns-Club Festival, recently
held in that city Alfred B. Sweet, the poet, re-
sponded to the memories Of Ramsey, Tannahiil, j
Scott, the Ettrick Shepherd, Muir and Aytoun,"
in the following beautiful speech;
The occasion we commemorate elicits the best
feelings of the heart. Not with the. trappiues Of
wealth or power is it numbered. It is graced with
the harp Of poetry, and how golden the radiance
shed hoT sanctfying the influence breathed.-
This harp may rest during life in the shadow Of
obscurity, with the cold breeze Of neglect whist
ling through its strings but death is the sunburst
that kindles the gloom, and the breath ofa world
bears down the music through the listening ages.
Stately and-beautiful is the harp of Scotland.
Its frame is built from the moorland hills-its
strings woven from the blossoms Of the heather.
The dash of the linn-the twitter Of the bfrd-the
sough Of the wind through the midnight glen
the tick Of the sleat against the lonely shielng-
the bleat of the lock upon the grassy brae, and
the wimple Of thf burniein the bushy dngle these,
form its simple, natural, and expressive music
From the earliest ages, and sometimes from fin-
gers long since forgotten, has this music sounded
1t has fingered in the crouching clachan-aione
the HoWery holm beneath the frowning scaur,
and on the misty peak. It has been crooned in
ingle Of the Lowland cottage. The chief has
chaunted it as he drew his claymore-the lover
breathed it to the listening maiden in the hazel
shaw-the seeker Of nature has recited iton the
sparkling loch and by the cloudy summit -:
How beautiful the fragments that have fioated
to US, on the preserving wave Of time! ssMax-
welton's Banks" by Douglas, whence the plain
tive song of "Annie Laurie has been taken"-ssthe
Flowers Of the Forest, by Jane Elliot, and "Auld
Robin Gray" by Lady Ann Lindsay-drops of
dew are these, distilled from the gowan and the
breckan, and crystaized in the memory Of every
Scotchman. -. *.
But this harp has walked to loftisr minstreis.-
Harry, the Rhymer, chaunted uponit the dceds of
-Wallace-Barbour, the achievements of Bruce,
and from it Allan Ramsay has swept 'the gentle
Shepherd" Burns then seized it, flung into it
his soul, and how magical the music it poured
Now it warbled like the mayis-now. triiled like
the lsrk-now it was sad as the moan Of the eushat
now merry as the strain of the blackbird with
here and there an outburst like the scream Of the
angry eagle. The timid fingers of Tannahill hove
strayed over tit has echoed to the untaueht
genius of the Ettriek Shepherd-rune like "a
clarion under the swinging hands of Seott-suug
sweetly to the skill of Campbell, and sobbed be.
meath the sorrowing soul Of Motherwell. It's
strings have scarce ceased vibrating to the touch
Of Muir, and it still sounds at intervals to the
magic Of Aytoun.
The muse delights to scatter her tongues of FIRE
IN ioWiy places. She waited one upon an Ayr
shise plough, she winged another to Paisley
loom.
Robert Tannahill was born at the manufactur-
ing town of Paisley, Renfre8shire, in the west of
Scotland, IN l774. His father was silk weaver,
and the son pursued the same occupation But
while his frame was chained by his daily tasks to
the humble seat-tree, his mind scared on the wing
of genius in theradiaut realms of poesy. Touch.
ing as the sight Of Burns balancing his cadenees
in the furrow, is that of Tannahill jottng his
thoughts of music on rude board beside his
loom, in the intervals of plying the shuttle With
the exception Of two years passed at Bolton, in
England; he lived and died a weaver, in his native