David Gray (Poet)

David Gray ( born January 29, 1838 in Kirkintilloch, † December 3, 1861 Watch country) was a Scottish poet.

Life and work

He was in Duntiblae -on- Banks of the Luggie to Kirkintilloch, a small town in East Dunbartonshire near Glasgow, heard Born as the eldest of eight children. His parents were the Weber David Gray and his wife Ann, née Cloggie. During his childhood the family moved to the nearby hamlet Wish country.

Gray attended school in Kirkintilloch and was able to make his work as a tutor and substitute teacher visiting the University of Glasgow. There he turned to poetry, though his parents would have preferred it if he had pursued the profession of a clergyman. In Glasgow he began to write poems for the Glasgow Citizen. From this time his main work originates with the title The Luggie, an idyllic poem, which is about the river on which Gray had grown up.

His closest confidant at this time was ten years older, poet Robert Buchanan. The two decided to go to London, to live from writing. This intent they realized in May 1860 although Grays correspondent, Richard Monckton Milnes had the poet ( later Lord Houghton ), strongly discouraged him about it.

After their arrival in London Houghton continued to try to persuade Gray to return to Scotland, where he had had at least through his teaching job to earn a living, but Gray drew London. Houghton's trial, the poem about the Luggie in Cornhill Magazine failed and he could only get Gray small orders. The living conditions of Gray and Buchanan during this time were pathetic. They lived in Blackfriars in a garret, among Grays greatly suffered poor health, since he had become infected with tuberculosis.

Gray traveled in the course of 1860 returned to Scotland, where he remained not long, however, but for reasons of health went south. Houghton enabled him to stay in Torquay, but Gray's health was irreparably damaged, and homesickness plagued him. In January 1861 he finally returned to Scotland. Here he wrote in his last year, some sonnets, which he titled In the Shadow (English: In the Shadow ) summarized. Before the end of the year he died. On his grave in the cemetery in Kirkintilloch built his friends in 1865 a grave stone.

His works were published posthumously several times. Grays correspondence with Houghton is now kept at Trinity College, Cambridge.

Works

• Richard Monckton Milnes Houghton, James Hedderwick (eds. ): The Luggie And Other Poems By David Gray. With A Memoir By James Hedderwick And A Prefatory Notice By RM Milnes, MP. Macmillan and Co., Cambridge, London, 1862.
• Richard Monckton Milnes Houghton, James Hedderwick (eds. ): Poems by David Gray. With momories of his life. Roberts Brothers, Boston 1865