Allan Ramsay. [A biography.] - National Library of Scotland

ALLAN RAMSAY 119
from scurvy in the gums, which in the end attacked
his jawbone and affected his speech. To the close, how-
ever, he retained his cheerfulness and buoyancy of spirits.
When the last great summons at length came to him, he
met it with a manly fortitude and Christian resignation.
Amongst his last words, according to his daughter
Janet, who survived until 1807, were these: 'I'm no'
feared of death ; the Bricht and Morning Star has risen
and is shining mair and mair unto the perfect day.'
And so he passed ' into the unseen ' on the 7th January
1758, in the seventy-second year of his age. He was
interred two days after in the Greyfriars Churchyard,
where his gravestone is still visible, bearing the inscrip-
tion :
' In this cemetery was interred the mortal part
of an immortal poet, Allan Ramsay, author of The Gentle
Shepherd and other admirable poems in the Scottish
dialect. He was born in 1686 and died in 1758.
' No sculptured marble here, no pompous lay,
No storied urn, no animated bust
This simple stone directs pale Scotia's way
To pour her sorrows o'er her poet's dust.^
Though here you're buried, worthy Allan,
We'll ne'er forget you, canty callan ;
For while your soul lives in the sky,
Your "Gentle Shepherd" ne'er shall die.'
Sir John Clerk, one of the Barons of the Exchequer
in Scotland, who admired his genius and was one of his
most intimate friends, erected at his family seat at
Penicuik an obelisk to his memory ; while Mr. Alexander
1 The first stanza is in reality by Burns, and is identical with
that he placed on the tombstone he erected over the remains of
Fergusson, the poet, in the Canongate Churchyard.
;