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MAGUS

16 ‘Elegiac Stanzas: On the Death of a Beloved Brother “The sound has come across the wave To call me to a brother’s grave.” Note. – The brother whose death is lamented in the following lines was born in Mill Street, Ballymena, on the 8th of February, 1794, and died in Quebec, North America, on the 30th of August, 1873. For a few years previous to his departure for Quebec, which took place in the Spring of 1817, he lived in Laymore, and with him I passed many a happy hour on the Rowantree Hill, and along the banks of the Clogher Burn – a stream now far famed for being the favourite resort of an old woman who was thought by all the credulous of the neighbourhood to be a witch. Be that as it may, her doings in many cases were indeed odd and laughable. Often have I seen her spread a white sheet over the burn, and then place on it knives, forks, spoons, dishes, and many other things belonging to the house, until it sank. She would then cry, “Dippy, dippy; come a’ to me; come a’ to me,” but whether they were at her bidding or not I could not get so near as to see. Her tricks of the above kind were numerous, and gave her no reputable name in the country. She has, however, long since paid the debt of nature; but her memory is not likely so soon to pass away from amongst us. ADIEU! my dear brother, adieu! In life we shall never meet more, Out innocent joys to renew, Along the green vales of Laymore. In a far foreign land you are laid, Where rolls the Saint Lawrence along, Where man have found by your aid, A home the wild woodlands amoung. And many will loan o’er the spot Where moulder your ashes away; The world and its pleasures forgot Your memory to keep from decay. When I think of the days that are past,

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