Poetry of James McLay (1837-1918)

James and Catherine McLay left their native Scotland for the new world in 1872, and had settled on Gabriola Island by 1874, where they grew produce for the Nanaimo market, according to "scientific principles". (These principles paid off in the form of first prize for every vegetable entered in the 1886 Cowichan fair.)  James was an active member of the Gabriola farming community, serving at various times as roads foreman, secretary of the school board, on committees for relief of the widows and orphans of mine disasters, and, in later life, as justice of the peace.  Not content with farming and community service, he was also a taxidermist (some of his work still survives), an amateur astronomer, and contributed articles and poems to the Nanaimo Free Press.  He typifies the energy of the late nineteenth century, in his commitment to science and his willingness to express himself in a public forum.

We have found three of his poems published in the Nanaimo Free Press.  The first, "No More", was written just weeks before Catherine's death from consumption (tuberculosis), and published on March 14, 1883.  The second, "Mother's Away", was published April 21, two weeks after her death. The third, "Arise, Bruised Spirit", appeared on August 30, 1884, not long after the disaster at the Wellington colliery.  The first two are clearly personal. Whether the third is addressed to the survivors of the disaster, to his own bruised spirit, or both, we leave to the reader to decide.

 

NO MORE

All nature smiles on him that ne'er
Felt touch of sorrow's hand,
The sun to him in dazzling robes,
Beams on a happy land.

Ah! yes, the sun with glory opes
The portals of the morn,
And strikes love's chords within the heart,
That has no cause to mourn.

 To me, the sun's resplendent rays,
Sinks sad'ning in my heart,
And every pretty flower I see
Throws, but a poisoned dart.

The azure fields 'mongst starry heights
Where roamed my spirits light,
Seems now to me a dreary waste,
A chaos of the night.

No more, alas no more for me,
Can summer gem the lea,
With daisy sweet or heather-bell,
Where Katy walked with me.

 

MOTHER'S AWAY

She has passed life's bourne, and away, away-
Away to the realms of eternal day,
Led by the star of her heaven-born love,
Beaming on her soul from the mansions above.

She passed away like a vision of light-
Wafted away on the wings of the night,
As if borne along on an angel's wings;
She looked so immortal-that mortal thing.

She slipped from our grasp in the dark'ning hour,
As the night's dark pall veiled the bright sun's power;
As her loved ones crouched, in the shadowed gloom
Of the lamp's pale light in the saddened room-

In the saddened room, where the deep-heaved sigh,
Brought the scorching tear to the motherless eye-
To the motherless eye, of all save one-
Mary knows not yet her ma's "race is run,"

Knows not yet, of the severed earthly ties,
And that in the quiet grave, her ma now lies.
Then angel of love, let the sad news fall,
Softly on her ear - on the ears of all;

Uncles and aunts, and her grandmamma too,
Let their tears be like drops of pearly dew,
Glistening o'er the bed where affections lie,
Mellowing the heart, and the grief-dimmed eye.

She has passed life's bourne, and away, away-
Away to the realms of eternal day,
Led by the star of her heaven-born love,
Beaming on her soul from the mansions above.

 

ARISE, BRUISED SPIRIT, ARISE

Ah! why should we so fondly cling
To thoughts that give the deepest sting-
To memories that o'er us throw
A veil whose warp and waft is woe.

E'en as we bid sad thoughts depart
We clasp them closer to our heart,
And fondle o'er the withered flower
We're casting off from hour to hour.

The things we love pass softly by,
As feathered clouds within the sky,
The thing we dread, we always find
Nursed in the cradle of the mind.

And oft within this tangled vale,
We hear the laugh drowned in the wail,
And see the opening bud of spring
Shrivel beneath death's venomed sting.

But this is nature and nature's law,
A blooming flower, a withered straw:
A tree life rising greets the sun,
Its mate, low mouldering and undone.

Yet from that fallen giant's dust,
The sapling shoot is gayly thrust,
And deathless all - its ashes greens
The shading forest's leafy screens.

Then, rise bruised spirit from the gloom-
The mystic vista to the tomb,
That, for which thou mourn'st is not there
But gerns the brow of nature fair.

But thou, poor vaunting, finit man
Would'st sum correct the infinite's plan,
Yet spurn his works through nature given
The ladder's steps 'tween earth and heaven.

Man, can do something in his line
Can eat a peach and say tis fine,
But how the mellow thing did grow
Is just the thing he cannot know.

He can earth's granite jaws unlock -
Belch from its hold, the surf-beat rock,
Where, for some thousand years it hath
Withstood the ocean's billowed wrath.

He can, but then, is't he who can?
Here comes a thought we cannot span--
Wide, as the universe's flight,
Where there is neither depth, nor heighth.

A centreless, and boundless way,
And timeless all - no night, no day.
Without beginning, and no end
That finit mind can comprehend.

But on, and on, forever on,
Stretches the eternal spirit throne,
Bejewelled with its blazing suns,
And living worlds, which round them runs.

Back to our modest earth again,
And listen to the joyous strain.
Or plaintive notes, of bird or bee,
In sorrow, or in ecstacy.

Then, let us nothing under rate,
For know - the power is just as great
That shoots from dust, the grassy spears
As what revolves celestial spheres.

Then, forward, spirit, on your way,
A task awaits you every day --
Nought lives, or moves, in calm or storms,
But hath its duties to perform.