He became decidedly worse in the month of October, and was at length
obliged to confine himself to bed. After a severe illness of four weeks,
he died on the 21st of November, "departing this life," writes William
Laidlaw, "as calmly, and, to appearance, with as little pain, as if he
had fallen asleep, in his gray plaid, on the side of the moorland rill."
The Shepherd had attained his sixty-fifth year.

The funeral of the Bard was numerously attended by the population of the
district. Of his literary friends--owing to the remoteness of the
locality--Professor Wilson alone attended. He stood uncovered at the
grave after the rest of the company had retired, and consecrated, by his
tears, the green sod of his friend's last resting-place. With the
exception of Burns and Sir Walter Scott, never did Scottish bard receive
more elegies or tributes to his memory. He had had some variance with
Wordsworth; but this venerable poet, forgetting the past, became the
first to lament his departure. The following verses from his pen
appeared in the _Athenæum_ of the 12th of December:--

"When first descending from the moorlands,
I saw the stream of Yarrow glide,
Along a bare and open valley,
The Ettrick Shepherd was my guide.

"When last along its banks I wander'd,
Through groves that had begun to shed
Their golden leaves upon the pathway,
My steps the Border Minstrel led.

"The mighty minstrel breathes no longer,
'Mid mouldering ruins low he lies;