Love by ,Smith was born in Kilmarnock on the 31st December 1829 into a large family of six children. His father was an artisan, producing printing blocks that could be used in the textile industry, particularly using muslin and calico. The family moved twice during Smith’s early years, eventually settling in Glasgow.
Perhaps there was little money for a formal education and the young Alexander Smith found himself working in his father’s trade at the tender age of eleven. His time spent at a small parish school at least gave him rudimentary skills in literacy and he was a particularly keen student of English poets.
Love by Alexander Smith
Love
THE fierce exulting worlds, the motes in rays,
The churlish thistles, scented briers,
The wind-swept bluebells on the sunny braes,
Down to the central fires,
Exist alike in Love. Love is a sea
Filling all the abysses dim
Of lornest space, in whose deeps regally
Suns and their bright broods swim.
This mighty sea of Love, with wondrous tides,
Is sternly just to sun and grain;
‘Tis laving at this moment Saturn’s sides,
‘Tis in my blood and brain.
All things have something more than barren use;
There is a scent upon the brier,
A tremulous splendour in the autumn dews,
Cold morns are fringed with fire.
The clodded earth goes up in sweet-breath’d flowers;
In music dies poor human speech,
And into beauty blow those hearts of ours
When Love is born in each.
Daisies are white upon the churchyard sod,
Sweet tears the clouds lean down and give.
The world is very lovely. O my God,
I thank Thee that I live!
