Author:
Andrew James Symington [CARL CHRISTIAN RAFN; GLASGOW]
Publication details:
Poem without date or place; letters 18 December 1894 (on letterhead '1 LANDORE TERRACE, | BATTLEFIELD, LANGSIDE, | GLASGOW.') and 7 January 1895 ('Langside: Glasgow').
Symington (1825-98), a minor Scottish poet, traveller and author, spent a year in America and edited a selection of President Garfield's speeches, and thus was accorded an entry in Appleton's Cyclopaedia. The poem (four pages, 12mo, on bifoliate, very good with light spotting and staining) is printed in blue, with an engraving in black of (according to the poem) 'a Harp [...] of rare beauty [...] On either side, an alabaster Cross | Of snowy whiteness twined with dew-sprent flowers' and a 'white Dove with an olive branch [...] | Descending'.
