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Presented to the LIBRARY of the

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

by

ESTATE 0^ THE LATE MARY SINCLAIR

SELECTIONS

THE GAELIC BARDS,

METRICALLY TRANSLATED,

WITH BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACES AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.

ALSO,

ORIGINAL POEMS.

THOMAS PATTISON.

GLASGOW:

PRINTED BY ARCHIBALD SINCLAIR, 04 ARGYLE STREET.

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PEEFATOEY NOTICE.

THOMAS PATTISON was a native of Islay. He was designed for the Church, and after receiving a fair elementary education at the Parish School of Bowmore, was sent to the University of Edinburgh, and afterwards to that of Glasgow. In the latter he completed his studies, and became thereafter a licentiate of the Church of Scotland. His excellent attainments, enthu- siasm in various departments of literature, and singular modesty of character, endeared him to his family and friends; and his death, at an early age, was profoundly mourned.

The friends of Mr. PATTISON, on whom devolved the duty of ushering these Metrical Translations and other Literary Remains into the world, are indebted to one who was his early school companion and dear friend, now a clergyman of the Church of Scotland, for the following truthful and eloquent tribute to his sweet and gentle memory : —

" Without pronouncing an opinion on the merits of this work as a literary composition, I am disposed to think that those who are capable of estimating the difficulties that surrounded the task of which these Translations are the performance, will hail them as at least a valuable contribution to a branch of study which has b

VI PREFATORY NOTICE.

hitherto received but scant measure of consideration. Perhaps it may be questioned whether Mr. PATTISON did not attempt too much in the task which he set himself, and whether the result at which he aimed was not beset by unnecessary hindrances to a felicitous poetical translation. In presenting his readers with a version of Gaelic Poems, that conveys not only the substantial but the literal meaning of the originals, and that combines the original metres, line for line, with the English element of rhyme, it is plain that he had one fruitful source of embarrassment to contend with from which the Bards were free. At the same time, such as can compare the Translations with the originals, must acknowledge the remarkable fidelity with which even the most difficult passages have been rendered ; and, although they may censure the plan on which the Translations were projected, they will not fail to make allowance for the difficulties it entailed. Even in this particular the Translator's aim was high.

" But while anticipating for the volume a hearty welcome at the hands of all for whom the poetry and literary activity of an ancient and kindred people have attractions, I fear it will give the reader little insight into the fair proportions of the Trans- lator's mind. Those who knew his devotion to English Literature, his accurate and profound acquaintance with its history, his severe study of its greatest Masters, and the fine combination of strength and culture with which he latterly approached it, will feel with me that the translation of Gaelic Poetry was not a fair test of his literary powers, and that no amount of success in it can indicate the full extent of the loss sustained by us in his death. All who enjoyed his private friendship, are aware that his work on "The Gaelic Bards," was little more than an effort in a bypath of his studies and pursuits. If I ana not mistaken, the impulse to it may be traced, in a great measure, to the " Highland Tales," published by Mr. John Campbell, of Islay. Being asked to assist in the collection of materials for that work, Mr. PATTISON responded by giving his cordial co-operation. The result was an enthusiasm in the cause of Gaelic Literature and

PREFATORY NOTICE. Vll

Antiquities; an enthusiasm that gave a certain permanence and character of real lifework to a pursuit accepted in the first instance as a recreation. It led him step by step, insensibly, away from his first intention. The search for fugitive Gaelic lore in prose and verse, languishing in every remote glen of his native Highlands, led to independent researches, and a careful perusal of the compositions of the Bards known to be in print. With a feeling of sadness, pardonable in a Highlander, he saw that the men of Celtic blood were being rapidly absorbed into communities of Anglo-Saxon lineage — and to rescue the poetry of the Clansmen from dying with the Clans, he set himself the task of transfusing it into the English tongue. The field was new to him, but he entered on it with the ardour of one who was engaged in a labour of love. It brought him once more in contact with the scenes and associations of his boyhood. It opened up glimpses of a national life which had for him the freshness of the sea-breeze and the scented heather, in the rambles of a long vacation. The student of Dante and of Shakespeare, of Goethe and of Burns, felt that it was indeed holiday-time with him on Ben-Dorain and in 'Coire-Cheathaich with Duncan Ban, or with Macdonald and his boatmen aboard of the famous Birlinn of Clan-Ranald.

" It was a vigorous and patriotic effort; a right pleasant recreation to begin with, conducted with infinite spirit and very rapidly completed. If it bears on it, as we see it now, in a posthumous volume, the marks of haste, I am convinced it is because he felt that the fruits of more important avocations were ripening, and that the claims of larger plans were pressing. Although, therefore, the subject to which he devoted himself thus heartily for a time, was congenial to his sentiments and feelings, it certainly was not what he himself would have regarded as most in harmony with the natural bent and development of his genius, or as the proper fruit of his life's true work.

" At the time when these Translations were commenced, his health indeed was such as might well justify him in making a digression from the main course of his pursuits, for in youth he possessed the strength and litheness of an athlete; but, alas! the

Vlll PREFATORY NOTICE.

hand of death stayed him, so that he returned not to the old paths. It may be said that in what was but an interlude in the great game of life, for which he had trained himself with rare patience and fortitude, he sank upon his shield. In this volume, hastily prepared, we have at once his salutation and farewell : Moriturus nos salutat.

"We looked for his speaking to us from the heart of English Literature, with which few men of his years stood in such close relationship of thought and feeling. Old letters are beside me still, indicating a genuineness of discipleship to the leaders of thought in English speech, from Chaucer to Wordsworth and Tennyson, such as warranted the hope that he would, one day, himself become a master, the influence of whose teaching would be felt.

"He wrote much (that must still be accessible) during the years in which his reading was most extensive and his plans were being matured. Even his letters alluding, as they do, from time to time, to the subjects on which he was engaged, are themselves full of critical notices and discussions of points of literary interest, with sonnet or song, or stanza in heroic verse, interspersed by way of offset to the prose, many of which are worthy of being recast in a form of greater permanence. Must we despair of seeing a selection made from these remains by a kindly and discriminating hand? I cannot but believe that some such selection would amply justify the expectations of his friends, if it would also embitter the poignancy of their regrets. - Feelings of regret are already strong in the breasts of those who knew him best; — they feel that his sun went down, not while it was yet day, but before the radiant promise of the morning had broadened into noon. They could wish that years had permitted him to vindicate his devotion to letters, and his choice of a secluded and studious life, as well as to prove to a wider circle, than that of friends, that he had rightly estimated his powers and understood his mission. Some of those who began life with him, may have made more of it in a way, and succeeded better in the world, as the world goes. Some, no doubt, regarded him as unpractical, dreamy, perhaps even

...

PREFATORY NOTICE. IX

indolent ; for his life was a hidden life to such. They and he dwelt far apart. Yet few men were more sagacious, or less visionary, making allowance for difference of pursuits, and fewer still could have resisted for so long a period the drain made by protracted vigils and incessant mental effort on the vital powers. Few of the busiest, in your busy city, worked harder in his own way, or knew less of idleness. A disposition naturally retiring, joined to a sensitive and gentle spirit that was too just to take advantage of the weakness of others, and too proud to stoop to anything that partook of artifice, was somewhat out of joint, perhaps, with the usual conditions of success. There were others, however, who knew how to hold such a man in estimation. In their eyes, he was a man who had deliberately made choice of his vocation, and was following it out, in the spirit of an earnest faith ; but a man, besides of genial temperament, who was sincere in his friendship, and honourable in all things. To them, his life — grand in the simplicity of its taste, and the nobleness of its aims — seemed to move bravely on, in an orbit of its own, till it 'shot on the sudden into dark/

" It would seem as if men passed from the midst of us at intervals, whose moral and intellectual worth, after covering their own lives with its beauty, and bidding fair to make lovelier the lives of many, were suddenly restrained by stern inscrutable decree from wider influence. It is as if the stream that had worn its way from the bosom of lone hills, and made beautiful its narrow course through glen and gorge, were of a sudden to slip underground, disappearing at its broadest and strongest, where the wild flowers and grasses of the uplands give place to the green verge of tilled and peopled plains. Their natural genius, and the discipline they willingly undergo, because the eye is fixed on some farther goal, having served to trim their own life's bark, these men quit us on a voyage in which we may be borne to them, but from which they cannot return to us. Such men are understood only by the few who feel their power and influence, as those of a life rich in its own gifts, and moving altogether, with

X PREFATORY NOTICE.

its faith, hopes, aims and labours, in a plane higher than that on which the traffic of ordinary minds is driven.

" It is fortunate for men of this order, especially fortunate for those of them whose lot is cast in these exceeding practical times of ours, that they have found a champion whose shield protects them from the unfeeling pity of that portion of the world that is busied only with material interests, as well as from the taunts of all who measure themselves and others by small successes in ignoble spheres. Of this order Arthur Hallam may now be regarded as the Representative, and " In Memoriam " as the enduring Vindication. To that same order of minds, and that same band of pure, high-souled, devoted men, whom "God's ordinance of Death" withheld from the achievement of a distinction commensurate with their powers, belonged THOMAS PATTISON.

" ' Sleep sweetly tender heart in peace : Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet.' "

CONTENTS.

Page

INTRODUCTION, . . . xv MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

ALEXANDER MACDONALD, ... 1

Manning of the Birlinn, ... 8

The Sugar Brook, ... 27 Hail to the Mainland, . . .33

Flowers (from the Ode to Summer), . . 34 Birds (from the Ode to Winter), . . .35

The Grouse Cock and Hen, . . 36

Morag and other Belles, . . . ib.

Song of the Highland Clans, . . 37

The Praise of the Lion, . . 40

DUNCAN BAN MACINTYRE, . . .47

Introduction to Ben Dorain, . . 52 Ben Dorain, . . . .53

Introduction to " Coire Cheathaich," . 57

Coire Ceathach, .... 58

Introduction to Mairi Bhan Og, . . 63

Song to his Spouse newly Wedded, . 66

The Praise of Dunedin, . 71

From the Song of Glenorchy, 74

A Rhyme to Thirst, . . 76

Introduction to " The Last Farewell to the Hills," 77 The Last Farewell to the Hills,

DUGALD BUCHANAN,

The Skull, .... 87

Xll CONTENTS.

Page

From the Ode to Winter, , .91

From the Day of Judgment, . . 92

ROB BONN, . . . .95

The Greedy Man and the World, . 96

The Shieling Song, . . . 97

The Death-Song of Hugh, . . 101

WILLIAM Ross, . . . .103

The Cuckoo on the Tree, . . .105

MARY MACLEOD, . . . .107

Macleod's Ditty, . . 108

MACGREGOR'S LULLABY, . . . 112

Gregor McGregor's Lament, . . 113

Sorrow now fills me, . . . 117

The Braes of Ceathach, . . .120

FUGITIVE SONGS, . . . .121

Och mar tha mi, . . .122

An Gille dubh, ciar dubh, . . .124

Hoog orin 0 ! . . .126

Sick! Sick! . . . .127

A Maiden's Lament, . . . 129

The Boatman, . . 131

Monaltri, . . . .133

MaliBheagOg, . . .134

Breigin Binneach, . . .137

Mairi Laghach, . . . 138

ANCIENT'GAELIC BARDS.

OSSIANIC POETRY, . . . .141

The Sweetest Sound, . , . 148

The Banners of the Feinne, . . 153

Ossian and Evir-Alin (a Poet's wooing long ago), 156

The Death of Oscar, . . .160

The Lay of Diarmad; or Fingal's Revenge, . 167

Ossian's Address to the Sun, . . 173

Address to the Setting Summer Sun, . 177

Dan do'n Ghrein, . . .180

Translation of the same, . . 181

A Sail in the Hebrides, 182

CONTENTS. Xlll

Paga

The Bed of Gaul, . . .184

Fingal going to Battle, . . .186

The Four Wise Men at Alexander's Grave, . 188

The Aged Bard's Wish, . . .191

Verses Addressed to Mr. E. Llhuyd, . . 199

ORIGINAL POEMS.

[EBRIDIAN SKETCHES. — A Fair Day, . . 207

Loch-in-daal, . . .214

Sir Lachlan Mor, . . . 218

The Pious Labourer, . . . 222

The Haunted Water of Dubh-thalamh, . 226

The Escape, . . . .231

Spring, . . . .233

Knowest thou the Land? . . . 236

A very Cold Day, . . .237

The Islander's Guiding Star, . . 240

King Robert the Bruce and the Spider, . 242

Dear Islay . . . 249

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

Wild Animals, . . . .251

We do all Fade as a Leaf, . . . 255

Hollow Friendship, . . . 259

The Patriot King, . . .261

Little Emmeline, . . . 263

Time Flies, . . . .264

Oppressors and the Oppressed, . . 265

Old Memories, . 266

INTEODUCTION.

IN the introduction to a small work which assumes the flattering title of " The Book of Scottish Song," I find the following sen- tences : — " Nearly all the beautiful music, and delicious snatches of song, commonly considered to be Scottish, belong to that section of Scotland known as the Lowlands, and a country in which the people speak one of the many 'Doric' dialects of the Saxon English language." ... u If a line be drawn from Greenock on the Clyde north-east by Perth to Inverness, it will be found that by far the greater portion of the songs and melodies which are known as Scotch, to Scotchmen and to the world, and of which Scotchmen speak and write with the highest pride and enthu- siasm, have been produced to the south and east of it."

"North-west of that line is the land of the Gael — of the semi-bar- barous and imperfect instrument the bagpipe, of wild pibroch tunes, of rude melodies, very little known and still less admired, and of a species of song which has rarely been considered worth the trouble of translation. But on the south-east of the line, and all the way to the English Border, where the Saxon tongue prevails, and where the minds of the people have for ages had access to English litera- ture, the land is vocal with sweet sounds." .... "The Highlander who has no right or title to this music or song, is as proud of both as the Lowlander; and not unfrequently claims for his own wild melodies, and for his rude attempts at lyrical poetry in the lan- guage of the Gael, a large portion of the admiration lavished upon compositions of a totally different origin and character. The

XVI INTRODUCTION.

Lowlanders, while they admit the claim of the Highlanders, take to themselves the little that is good in Celtic music and song, in order that with it they may swell the triumphs of a land, that not being geographically English, is considered to be Scotch."

When such utter ignorance, and such absurd mis-statements, are found in a book which, both from its title and its subject, ought to show better things — when we know, moreover, that not merely strangers, but the Scottish people themselves — many even of the Highlanders, and almost all the Lowlanders are quite unaware of the immense mass of popular poetry belonging to their country, which is treasured in the Gaelic Language, and do not frequently so much as know the names of poets whose admirable works should do so much to raise the lyric glory of Caledonia, it is surely time for those who, happening to have been more favourably circum- stanced, are on this point better instructed, to endeavour to show their countrymen how much they have been neglecting — how unfair they have been to the Highlands and their inhabitants, when they believe on the worst, or on no authority at all, that the lyric genius,, which has made Scotland so famous, has been bounded by an imaginary geographical line, and that the descend- ants of the people who have given the northern half of the British Isle all the names by which it ever has been known, have used a language always unblest by the spoken music of sentiment, and have done nothing to add to the glory of their land, except what was reaped on the fields of battle by their strong arms and their hardy valour. This shows the folly into which people will stray, who take upon themselves to dictate with regard to things they do not even endeavour to understand. Of the Lowland Scottish Language, and its claims to be considered something different from, and higher than the provincial dialects of the English counties, we have nothing to say at present, neither does it come in our way to speak of Scottish Music, or of its origin, Highland or Lowland, Celtic, Scandinavian, or Saxon, or a union of them all; but we make this one remark in passing, that Highland music is very unfairly characterised when it is termed "rude and wild/' mean- ing thereby, not that it has never received any scientific culture,

INTRODUCTION. XV11

which is quite true, but obviously that it is destitute of beauty, of natural grace and artistic feeling, to affirm anything like which is to assert something outrageously false. Whatever of tender- ness, of freshness, of natural elegance, of depth of sentiment there is in the Lowland Scotch Music, any one who goes about such inquiry, in an unprejudiced spirit, will find in the Highland melo- dies too, and not in an inferior degree. I remember hearing a gentleman, himself a musician, well acquainted with music in its highest and most elaborate departments say, that Highland melo- dies, when properly played or sung — that is with their own simple and peculiarly expressive character — thrilled him through with an amazing power. He felt as in a moment surrounded with High- land scenery, its lofty mountains and sweet glens, its sounding winds and waters, its mists and varied skies, and old historic asso- ciations, and he was accordingly profoundly affected. I can well understand this, for no music can be more like a living wail of sorrow, or a living laugh of joy, than that which melts our hearts, or makes them dance beneath its magic influence in the sweet wild notes of the mountain melodies of the Highlands. For my own, part I will yield to no Scotchman whatever in admiration for everything that is good and beautiful, and distinctively character- istic in Scottish poetry, no matter where or by whom produced ; but I believe there is a chapter, and that not the worst in it, yet to be added to " The Book of Scottish Song;" and I believe, when that chapter is added, this book will contain a treasure of popular national lyrics such as is possessed by no other nation in the world.

In the following pages I attempt to show, not only that there is as much Highland poetry, in proportion to the population, as there is of Lowland poetry, but that it possesses as much variety, and as high excellence of its own, as the Lowland Scottish poetry, of which we are all so justly proud. "With regard to the poetry current at one time or another in the Highlands, a simple statement of one or two well-known facts will be sufficient to render that strikingly evident, and to prove that poetic genius was abundantly possessed by the inhabitants of the mountain and insular districts of Scot-

xviii INTRODUCTION.

land. In Reid's " Bibliotheca Scoto-Celtica, an account of all the books that have been printed in the Gaelic Language/' there is a list given of fifty-eight different volumes of Gaelic poetry, contain- ing the works of well-known bards, or the result of collections made orally throughout the Highlands. Reid's book was pub- lished in 1832. Since then very important additions have been made to the poetical literature of the Highlanders. Besides many minor publications, a collection of Gaelic poetry, made by Sir Duncan Macgregor, Dean of Lismore, more than three hundred years ago, and containing selections from the compositions of fifty Gaelic bards, none of whom are included in the fifty- eight volumes already mentioned, has been published in 1862. About twenty- five years ago Mackenzie's "Beauties of Gaelic Poetry," was published. This work, without interfering with the Ossianic poetry at all, gives specimens of the productions of thirty-six noted Gaelic bards, along with a rather limited selection of fugi- tive Gaelic lyrics, among which, it may be interesting to notice, there is a song by the grandfather of the late Lord Macaulay, so that there is 110 difficulty in guessing whence that distinguished writer inherited his poetical genius. The " Beauties of Gaelic Poetry " is a large book, with small print and double columns. It contains more than thirty thousand lines of poetry, in many different kinds of rhyme and rhythm, and on a vast variety of subjects. These poems are in point of style quite as polished, and in point of structure quite as complete, as elaborate, and as finished as any such collection has ever been or ever can be, although they are, in a great measure, the compositions of authors who were quite uneducated, many of whom could neither read nor write. I am far from saying that they are all equally good, or that they are all worthy of being translated; but I can safely assert, that none of them is altogether bad, and that a good many of them are really of the first excellence in their class. They range in length from the heroic or descriptive imaginative chant, some- times eight or nine hundred lines long, down to the little lay of three or four stanzas.

I know that he who would translate from the Gaelic must brace

INTRODUCTION. XIX

up his faculties for the work, or else he had better let the thing altogether alone. It will not be sufficient to give a feeble echo of the Highland sentiment, in dawdling slipshod English, or to dress it in some shabby threadbare Lowland garb. In every Gaelic song that deserves translation, there is not merely something that is good, but something that is characteristic of its birthplace, and that is not therefore in the English or Lowland lyric. The air and sun of the great mountains, and the tuneful sea-lochs, have breathed and shone upon the poetry of the Highlands, and given its every feature their own peculiar tan. The translator's diffi- culty is to preserve this, and it is no small one. I am well aware of that; but yet I trust, the Highland Poems here rendered, will be found to retain something of their own look. I hope that no one who knows them in the original, will feel that they have lost all that is good in their old expression, when I present them with an English face.

THOMAS PATTISON.

MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

ALEXANDER MACDONALD.

ALEXANDER MACDONALD, always styled by his own countrymen, Mac Mhaighstir Alastair, i.e. the son of Mr. Alexander, a man of very vigorous parts, and to say the least of it, unexcelled in point of general ability by any of the Gaelic Bards — was the son of the Episcopalian clergyman for the parishes of Ardnamurchan and Moidart — at the end of the seventeenth, and beginning of the eighteenth century.

His father resided at Dalilea in Moidart, and would appear to have united the pleasant calling of the Highland Tacksman with the functions — not over-burdensome probably in a Presbyterian country, of the Episcopalian clergyman.

This gentleman is said to have been a man of immense bodily strength — nor is it strange that this quality is not forgot, even in a man who exercised his sacred vocation ; for it was a gift not superfluous in his circumstances : not one which the habits of his Christian flock allowed to rust in him unused. For instance, he had to walk to his church many miles every Sunday, over a rough country, at that time, without roads ; and then, after conducting the service, back to his home in the evening.

Again, the funerals, which, in his clerical capacity, he attended, were not always decorous scenes. His parishioners, on such occasions, used to bring with them a quantity of whisky — which being freely dispensed to the mourners, caused a good deal of excitement that did not always pass peaceably away.

'2 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

When the war of words changed into actual conflict, and tliu voice of reason could no longer be heard in the tumult, then the clergyman dashed in person into the fray, and settled the disputes on which his pastoral advice was wasted, by the strength of his right hand — the stoutest combatant, it is affirmed, seeing more than he quite cared to face, when he found he had to reach his antagonist through the intervening prowess of his minister. This strong pacificator, however, laid himself open to the charge of not dealing with perfect impartiality in his interference when the men of Moidart, who were his friends and relatives, happened to quarrel with the neigbouring men of Suainart;. who were comparatively strangers to him, and to his flock. His hand was heavier on the men of Suainart than on the men of Moidart. Such was the well-known " Mr. Alexander/' as the son of whom, their distinguished poet, Alexander Macdonald, is always spoken of by the Highlanders.*

Of the poet's own life, very little more than a few dates, is recorded. Even the date of his birth is nowhere mentioned ; nor do we hear much of his education, though he was almost the only one of the Gaelic Bards who received anything like a scholastic training. Not that the influence of his scholarship, whatever its extent might be, leaves any decided trace in his writings. Far from it. There he is always the pure Highland singer ; with the exception, at most, of the occasional use of an English word; or of a proper name like Phoebus, borrowed from the Greek mythology. His masters in poetry were-those of his own countrymen, who were

* A kindred soul with the above, and also a contemporary of his, was a Rev. Mr. Stewart, who followed Viscount Dundee's army, in 1G89. When the Highlanders made their impetuous and decisive charge at the battle of Killiecrankie, this gentleman, accompanied them wielding a heavy broad-sword. He used his weapon with such effect in the battle and pursuit, that eleven of the Royalists sank beneath its sway. When his excitement cooled down, however, he found that he could not draw his hand from the basket-hilt of his sword ; nor was it till a friend had cut through the net-work, that the warlike ecclesiastic was able to resume his ordinary appearance.

ALEXANDER MACDONALD.

1

his predecessors ; and the inspiration which his country itself, with its history, sentiments, and scenery, afforded him, as well as them. With regard to his tuition, we are told that he studied first under his father's superintendence; and latterly, for a year or two, at the Glasgow University. According to one account, his father intended him for his own profession, but discovered something in his character, or conduct, that did not suit well with this idea.

According to another account, the Clan-Ranald of the day, being fond of patronising young men of merit, wished to educate him for the bar ; but an early marriage, imprudently contracted by the poet, interrupted his studies before he was qualified for a profession. To support his family, Macdonald was obliged to leave college, and retire to Ardnamurchan ; where he lived, teaching and farm- ing, and composing poetry — a Presbyterian, and an elder of the Established Church, till the year 1745 : when, he not only forsook his all to join Prince Charles, but even changed his religion, and became a Catholic. The fiery and warlike songs with which he roused his countrymen, and animated their devotion for the unfortunate Stuart cause, show how true a Jacobite, and how good a poet, the son of Mr. Alexander was. He held a commission in the Highland Army, but whether he actually served in the field or not, does not clearly appear. After the battle of Culloden, he lived in hidings, and was exposed to considerable hardships for some time. On one occasion, when lurking about with his brother, the cold was so intense, that the side of Macdonald's head, which rested on the ground, became quite grey in a single night.

After this, he lived a short time in Edinburgh, teaching the children of some of his Jacobite friends. But he soon returned again to the Highlands, where he remained till his death, which happened (in what year is not stated), when he had reached " a good old age."

Reid, in his " Bibliotheca Scoto-Celtica," gives a description of the poet's personal appearance and habits, which is certainly very far from flattering.

"In person," Mr. Reid says, "Macdonald was large and ill- favoured. His features were very coarse and irregular. His clothes

4 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

were very sluggishly put on, and generally very dirty. His mouth was continually fringed with a stream of tobacco-juice, of which he chewed a very great quantity. His manner of composition was to lie on his back, in bed in winter, or on the grass in summer, with a large stone on his breast, muttering to himself in a low whisper his poetical aspirations."

It is in reference to this and other parts of Reid's notice of Macdonald, that Mackenzie in his "Beauties of Gaelic Poetry" says, "Like most men of genius, who have made some noise in the world, Mac Mhaighstir Alastair has been much lauded, on the one side, by the party whose cause he espoused, and as much vilified, and as much falsified, by the other party. Mr. Reid in his book, 'Bibliotheca Scoto-Celtica/ seems to have had his information from the last mentioned source."

The grotesque description of Macdonald then, just quoted, is probably a total fabrication ; or at any rate, a gross caricature by one of his enemies. Who ever heard of a poet, or any sane man, lying on his back in his bed, or on the grass, with a stone on his breast when he was composing ! A small spice of malice, or a drop of envy to anoint the eyes, and a description of Burns might very readily be given about as bad as the above ; substituting the smell of whisky for tobacco-juice, and the wet bundle of straw on which he composed "Mary in Heaven," for the stone' on the breast when he was composing.

Macdonald's first work was a Gaelic and English Vocabulary, published in 1741. His poems were published in Edinburgh in 1761. They formed the earliest volume of original poems ever published in Gaelic. A second edition appearedln 1764. This little book contained only thirteen poems; but a good many. more were added to it, after the Author's death. It is supposed, however, that not more than a tenth part of his Songs and Poems have been given to the world : a number of his MSS. having been torn, tossed about, and lost in the house of one of his sons. So his poetry, though in respect to quality, it holds a very distinguished rank, is in regard to its quantity, far from being in the first place among the works of Gaelic Bards.

ALEXANDER MACDONALD. .">

Alexander Macdonakl displays a great command of the Gaelic language, and a vast deal of talent and energy. He is a vehement, rapid, and exciting singer, as a general rule; but yet, he is by no means deficient in tenderness and grace; especially in his many sweet and pastoral descriptions of Nature. He is the most warlike, and much the fiercest of Highland poets, indeed, almost the only one of them all, at least for three centuries back, to whom this trait can with any truth whatever be ascribed.

Although his poems are few in number, only thirty-one altogether, they exhibit more variety of excellence on the whole than those, perhaps of any of his fellow-singers. While, although not so smooth and equable as Duncan Ban Maclntyre, he is equalled by no other when at his best.

The poem which follows, is considered by many Highlanders to be the most important production in their language. No poem is ever spoken of in the same breath with it, except the " Coire Cheathaich" or " Ben Dorain" of Duncan Ban; and, even these, are perhaps not always looked on, with quite the same pride; though, being easier understood, and composed altogether in a more 'elegant style, they probably impart fully as much pleasure, both to hearers and readers. Yet, if all Gaelic poems were to be destroyed, and one only excepted from the general ruin, I believe the voices of the majority of Highlanders would fix on <: The Birlinn of Clan-Ranald," as that one. The reason of this preference, however, may be those very peculiarities of style and structure, the tendency of which will be, perhaps, as much to repel as to attract a stranger, at least, in the outset. I think, however, no one can read this poem with attention and intelligence, without deeming it, in every respect — as regards expression, arrangement, conception — singularly original; with- out finding in it much graphic painting — and feeling it to be emphatically lively snd energetic. Such a reader will discover many minute touches in the poem to please him, though they might escape a more careless eye : — such for instance as the incitement to the rowers to

MODERN GAELIC BARBS.

" Wound the huge swell on the ocean meadow, Heavy and deep."

Or this other,

" Let your fists' broad grasp be whitening In your rowing ! "

Or how the effect of the cry "Suas orr !"

" Hurls the Birlinn through the cold glens, Loudly snoring."

Or again when they are told in the Boat Song to

" Let the grey sea ever foaming, Splash her forward pressing shoulders, And the currents groan and mingle Far behind her."

Or the description of the steersman, who is to be,

" A well set prop full of vigour,

Broad-seated, thick, Stout and sure, and skilful and wary,

Cautious, yet quick."

Or that of the balesman,

" His trust he '11 rigidly discharge it,

Neither faint nor slack, Nor straightening, while a drop remaineth,

His bending active back ; 'Though her boards should all get riddled,

He must keep her snug, As a well-made lid, close fitting,

Keeps a polished jug."

Then, there is the description of the storm in which the Birlinn made her first entry on the open sea. This, as a more elaborate and sustained effort of the poet's imagination, cannot fail to attract the notice of a discerning reader. The elements are let

ALEXANDER MACDONALD.

loose in their wildest fury, and terror is heaped on terror round the good ship of Clan-Ranald, as she courses on her perilous way from Uist to Carrickfergus ; and not until all her sails are rent, and every board and plank in her are strained, does the poet flag or stop to draw breath, or let " the rough wind bitter boaster" — "ruffle round her fair."

But though possessing many such notable points as the preced- ing, though altogether so remarkable a production, so very vigorous, so very characteristically Highland, " The Manning of the Birlinn" may not possibly abound in some other qualities, which are perhaps more attractive to the general reader than the lavish display of strength, the mere powerful exertion of energetic and robust faculties, can ever be.

The " Manning of the Birlinn" is here translated, line for line, with the original. It is the longest poem in Gaelic, except such as are Ossianic.

THE MANNING OF THE BIRLINN.

THE BLESSING OF A SHIP,

Along with an incitement for the sea, that was made J or the crew of the Birlinn of Clan Ranald.

MAT God bless the ship of Clan-Ranald ! *

This first day it floats on the brine, Himself, and the strong men who guide it,

Whose virtues surpassingly shine ! May the Holy Trinity temper

The stormy breath of the sky, And sweep smooth the rough swelling waters,

That our port we may draw nigh !

Father ! Creator of ocean,

And each wind that blows from on high ! Bless our slender bark and our heroes ;

Make all ill things pass them by. 0 Son ! bless thou our anchor,

Our tackling, helm, and sail ; Everything on our mast that is hanging,

Till our haven at'last we hail.

Bless our yards and all our mast-hoops ; Our masts and ropes, one and all;

* In Bishop Carswell's Gaelic Prayer-Book, published in the year 1567 — the first book ever printed in the Gaelic language — there occurs a prayer somewhat similar to this one, to be used by mariners going to sea. It, too, is a prayer to the Trinity ; very well arranged and expressed, and full of devotional feeling. It could hardly have been used or appreciated by a wild and savage people, such as we are sometimes, I think, very incorrectly, taught to regard the Highlanders of three hundred years ago.

ALEXANDER MACDONALD.

Our halyards and stays keep unbroken — Let no ill through them befall.

May the Holy Spirit be at the helm, And guide to the proper place;

He knows each port beneath the sun, We cast us on his grace.

THE BLESSING OF THE ARMS.

[ay God bless all our weapons —

Our blades of Spain, sharp and grey, And our massy mails which are able

The keenest edge to stay ; Our swords of steel and our corslets,

And our curled and shapely targets — Bless them all, without exception —

The arms our shoulder-belts carry.

Our bows of yew, well made and handsome,

Bent oft times in the breast of battle; Our birchen shafts not prone to splinter,

Cased in the sullen badger's hide. Bless our poniards and our pistols,

And our tartans fine and folded, And every implement of warfare

In Macdonald's bark this hour.

Be you, our crew, not soft or simple ;

Hardily brave deeds encounter ; While four boards shall hold together,

Or one plank to plank be tied — While beneath your feet she welters,

Or one knob remains above, Oh ! defy each sight of terror

Your strong hearts to melt or move.

If only you battle it well,

And the sea does not feel that you quail,

10 MODERN GAELIC BARDS,

She will humble herself in that knowledge, And her pride to your might will she vail.

Thus confront thy spouse on the land ; Let her not see thee get weak,

And the chance is she yields in the strife, Nor such contests will rashly re-seek.

Even so is the mighty deep, Tho' fierce frenzy her bosom fills ;

She will yield to your might none the less, As the King of the Universe wills.

THE INCITEMENT TO ROW TO A SAILING PLACE.

To bring the barge so dark and stately,

Whence we 'd sail away; Thrust out those tough clubs and unyielding,

Polished bare and grey ; Those oars well made, smooth-waisted,

Firm and light; That row steadily and boldly

From smooth palm to foam white ;

That send the sea in splashing showers

Aloft unto the sky, And light the brain-fire bright and flashing,

As when coal sparks fly. With purpose-like blows of the great heavy weapons,

With a powerful sweep, Wound the huge swell on the ocean meadow,

Rolling and deep.

With your sharp narrow blades white and slender,

Strike its big breast; Hirsute and brawny, and rippled and hilly,

And never at rest. Oh stretch, and bend, and draw, young gallants !

Forward going !

ALEXANDER MACDONALD.

Let your fists' broad grasp be whitening In your rowing !

Ye lusty, heavy, stalwart youngsters'

Stretch your full length ; With shoulders knotty, nervy, hairy,

Hard with strength ; See you raise and drop together

With one motion Your grey and beamy shafts, well ordered,

Sweeping ocean,

Thou stout surge-wrangler on the foremost oar,

Shout loudly, "Suas orr!"* The song that wakes the arm's best vigour

In each cruiser, And hurls the Birlinn through the cold glens,

Loudly snoring ; Or climbing, cleaving the swollen surges,

Hoarsely roaring.

When hill-waves thus are flung behind,

By your stout shoulders ; "Hugan" will the ocean wailing shouting say,

And "Heig" groan the oar holders. From the strong surge a thud — a dash of spray,

Goes o'er each timber, But still oars creak, though blisters rise on fingers,

Strong and limber.

For the stout, stiff, manly heroes

Must work untiring, Should every board of her be quivering,

Round oaken post and iron ;

* " Suas orr," " Up with her "— i. e., the Birliim. « Suas e," is a com- mon cry of encouragement. Whoever has seen the Highlanders dance their reels, must have witnessed the inspiring effect of "Suas e."

12 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

While oar blades splash among the water,

And knobs clank on her side, On with such force, you '11 make her course,

With fearless pride.

Strong arms can drive this slender bark

Through the wide deep, Eight in the face of the blue billows'

Rising, bristling heap. Now for such mettled manly crew,

Our oars to sweep ; To make the grey-backed^eddies whirl

Where their strokes press' d, And flag not, tire not, drowse not, bend not,

In the storm's rough breast.

Then after the six men and ten are seated at the oars, in order to row under the wind to the sailing place, let stout Callum, son of Ranald of the Ocean, shout the lorrarn* for her, and be seated on the foremost oar, and let this be it : —

Now, since you are rank'd in order,

And seem all to be well chosen,

Give her one good plunge, like champions,

Brave and boldly.

Give her one good plunge, &c.

Give her not a plunge imperfect, But with right good will and careful, Keep a watch on all the storm hills

Of the ocean.

Keep a watch, &c.

* lorram (pronounced, Yirram) is a boat song, or an oar song, and sometimes a Lament. This double meaning it acquired from the fact of the lorram being so often chanted in the boats, that carried the remains of chiefs and nobles over the western seas to lona.

ALEXANDER MACDONALD.

With a mighty grasp and manful ;

Stretch your bones and stretch your sinews ;

Leave her track in light behind you,

Stepping proudly.

Leave her track, &c.

Give a gleesome bout and lively ; Stoutly rousing one another, With this dainty boat-song chanted

By your fore-oar.

With this dainty boat-song, &c.

Raise the foam-bells round the tholepins, Till your hands are bare and blister' d, And the oars themselves are twisted

In the strong waves.

And the oars themselves, &c.

Let your brows be hotly lighted ;

Heed not should your palms get skinless,

And the huge drops from your forehead

Fast be falling.

And the huge drops, &c.

Bend, and stretch, and draw, young gallants,

Your shafts of fir, in hue light grey;

And pass with heed the wild rough currents

Whirling briny.

And pass with heed, &c.

Let your set of oars, full sweeping, Mash the great sea with their vigour, Going splashing in the wild face

Of the billows.

Going splashing, &c.

Row together, clean and steady, Cleaving the great swelling water,

1.°,

MODERN GAELIC BARBS.

Work with life and work with spirit, No delaying. Work with life, &c.

Give a graceful and a strong pull,

Looking oft on one another ;

Wake the force that 's in your sinews

All so strongly.

Wake the force, &c.

Be her ribb'd and oaken body In the wild glens moaning sadly, And her two thighs ever pounding

Down the surges.

And her two thighs, &c.

Let the ocean, crisp and hoary,

Rise with rough and deep-toned heavings,

And the lofty wailing waters

Shout and welter.

And the lofty, &c.

Let the grey sea, ever foaming, Splash her forward pressing shoulders, And the currents groan and mingle

Far behind her.

And the currents, &c.

Stretch, and bend, and draw, young gallants! Your shafts, with smooth waist painted red ; Work them with the pith and marrow

Of strong shoulders.

Work them, &c.

Sweep around yon point before you, Till your brows are streaming moisture ; Thence, with full-spread sail, leave Uist

Of the solans.

Thence, with full-spread sail, &c.

ALEXANDER MACDONALD. 2N THEY ROWED TO THE SAILING PLACE.

And they hoist up the new-blessed sails

Tauntly on high, And rattle in six oars and ten

And lay them by, Clear of the pegs that hold the sails

Along her thigh ; Then, Clan-Ranald from his nobles order' d

Good ocean skippers to sail by — Men who fear'd not any spectre,

Or sight of terror came them nigh.*

Then was it ordered, after choice had been made, that every man should look after his own particular charge. Immediately on this, there was a shout raised for a steersman to take the helm, in these words : —

Let this broad heavy hero sit at the helm,

Powerful, ready ; • No dash of the rising or falling sea

Must make him unsteady ; A well-spread prop full of vigour,

Broad-seated, thick — Stout and sure, and skillful and wary,

Cautious, yet quick.

* The Birlinn having arrived at the sailing place, we have here to sup- pose that Clan-Ranald himself, or some one else deputed by him for the purpose, placing himself in a conspicuous situation, calls out the men, one by one as they stand grouped before him, waiting for their instructions. He singles them out, however, not by name, but by a description of some of their personal characteristics, and of their capacity for making them- selves useful on board the untried Galley, which they had just been row- ing, The poet had possibly a real personage in his eye for every picture he draws, and assigned to each good boatman of his acquaintance the post he would have been fitted to fill in the circumstances imagined ; describ- ing at the same time his appearance so accurately, that he might readily be recognised by those who knew him.

16 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

Never once hasty while watching the canvas,

Which swift winds unfurl. When he hears the shaggy ridge of the waters'

Roaring whirl, He '11 smartly keep her narrow head

Against the swirl. He '11 guide her so that she rocks or reels not

In her tack ; Ruling sail and sheet with eye that windward

Glances back ; He must not lose one ringer's fore-joint

Of the right course, In spite of all the tumbling surges,

And their force. He '11 beat so boldly, when there 's need,

In the wind's eye ; He'll make each oaken plank and fastening

Creak and cry. He must not blanch or get confused

With doubts and fears — Not should the sea's grey-headed swell

Rise round his ears. This stalwart seaman every terror

Must withstand ; Nor stir, nor move, but keep his place

With helm in hand ; And, watching the old hoary ocean,

Stern though it be, Must loosen or draw in the sheet,

As need he '11 see, And make her battle, run, or beat,

With full-sail'd glee. Thus he '11 keep her stiff and stubborn,

On top of the wild wave — Straight and sure into her harbour,

Let storms howl and rave.

ALEXANDER MACDONALD. ] 7

THE MAN WHO WAS TO WATCH THE RIGGING ORDERED OUT.

Place this shrewd man — great-fisted — there,

To watch the rigging, Who '11 be sedate and full of care,

With huge grasp — strong-finger'd ; Who 11 haul the yard- with right good will,

When the ship needs it ; And watch the mast and tackling still,

And bind and loosen. And he must know the winds that blow,

What course best suiting ; And he must 'work in harmony

With him who holds the sheet, And guide the tackling manfully, So long as his stout ropes and high

Shall hold together.

THE MAN SET ASIDE FOR THE SHEET.

Let this man, with mighty shoulders,

Sit on the thwart ; Who is so sinewy and hairy,

With his bones big — A thick-set, broad, and craggy champion,

With fingers huge. The sheet he must be ever guiding

With scrambling force ; When the winds come fiercely blowing,

Pulling well in ; But when it slacks, and lags, and flutters,

He lets free.

THE MAN ORDERED OUT FOR THE EAR-RING.

Let this man who is tight and sturdy, Handy, nice, and fine,

18 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

Work the jib-sheet without flinching,

When she nears the wind ; Bring it up and down in order,

To each fitting hold, As the wind may chance to follow,

Or the high topp'd wave ; And if he find the tempest rising,

Or loud groaning come, He '11 bring it, with good grasp heroic,

To the gunwale down.

THE LOOK-OUT ORDERED TO THE FORE.

Now, rising, let this slow man go

Up to the prow ; Our harbour with unerring knowledge

He must show ; Every art descrying keenly

Whence the wind can blow, And telling to the steersman surely

The right way to go. Each landmark he must note and gather

From afar, Since it, with Him who rules the seasons,

Is our guiding star.

THE MAN SET ASIDE FOR THE HALYARD.

At the halyard place this wight

Who is no sloven, But athletic, full of might,

Skilled and well-proven. Careful ever, free of haste,

With dark frowns ready ; And to guide his rope well placed,

Dainty but not heady. With a tug and with a twist

The sail restraining,

ALEX A X I ) I • 1 1 M A< ' 1 >u N A L I > .

Bending downward on his fist,

And strongly straining, Hard and fast he must not tie

The tough tight rope ; He only dares a loose loop try,

Giving it scope To run freely and to fly,

And murmur hoarse Round the peg, with hum and cry,

So swift its course.

The reporter of the waters about to be set aside, and just then the sea getting too rough, the steersman says of him : —

Let a man to watch the rain-squall

Quick, come nigh ; And sharply on the weather's heart

Let him keep his eye. Choose me a man half-frighten' d,

Cautious, sly; But not a coward out and out,

And let him pry, With curious watch, until the shower

He rippling spy; Then mark keenly if the gusts

Before, or behind it, fly; Nor must he let my heedless thoughts

Securely lie, But wake me up at sight of danger

With an eager cry. When towards us the drowning waters

Wailing hie; He must say, "The beam's thin head

Quick put about I" "A breaking wave!" with thunderous accents

Must he shout. He must thus inform me duly

When danger is nigh ;

20 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

But let no other weather- watcher

But himself be by, Nor make confusion, doubt, and tumult,

Through the whole crew fly.

A balesman is ordered out; in case the sea rush over her behind and before. —

To bale her let this strong man rise,

Active and brave, Who will not blanch, or yield, or tremble

For the shouting wave ; Who will not quail, who will not soften

For cold sea or hail, Though they lash and splash his neck and breast

On'the strong gale. With a thick, round, wooden vessel

In his horny hand, He,'ll let not the inpouring water

One moment stand; His trust he '11 rigidly discharge it,

Neither faint nor slack, Nor straightening while a drop remaineth

His bending active back ; Though her boards should all get riddled,

He must keep her snug, As a well-made lid, close-fitting,

Keeps a polished jug.

Two are ordered to watch the ropes behind the canvas, should there be any appearance that the sails will be swept from her with the roughness of the tempest : —

Now let this pair of strong and raw-boned men,

Rough and hairy, Be set to watch the ropes behind the sails,

Well and wisely.

ALEXANDER MACDONALD.

With pith and marrow, and great bone and brawn,

And tough sinews, To draw well in when time of danger comes,

Or else let free ; Careful to keep it always with smart hand

In the right middle. Donald MacCarmaig let us choose for this,

And John Maclan — Two most audacious fellows and expert,

Of the men of Canna.

Six are chosen as a reserve, in case any of those I have spoken of should fail, or that the fury of the sea should pluck him overboard, then one of these could take his place.

Now let these six agile men be ready,

Handy, lively, To get up/and leap, and run

Fore and aft her, Quick as a hare upon the hill-tops,

And the hounds near by. They must climb the hard smooth ropes,

Fine and hempen, Like a squirrel in the spring-time

Up a tree side. They must be skillful, hardy, active,

Sure, and restless, And spring to rope, or chain, or sail, or any

Needful order, Guiding the good ship, without weakness,

Of Vic Dhomhnuill.

Now, when everything appertaining to the sailing had been got under famous regulation, and every gallant hero drew without softness, without fear, without trembling, to the exact place where he had been ordered to go, they raised up the sails about the

22 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

rising of the sun on the day of the Feast of St. Bride, and they bore out of Loch-Ainneart, in Uist, looking southward.

The sun had opened golden yellow,*

From his case, Though still the sky wore dark and drumly

A scarr'd and frowning face ; Then troubled, tawny, dense, dun-bellied,

Scowling and sea-blue ; Every dye that's in the tartan

O'er it grew. Far away to the wild westward

Grim it lowered, Where rain charged clouds on thick squalls wandering

Loomed and towered. Up they raised the speckled sails though

Cloud-like light, And stretched them on the mighty halyards,

Tense and tight. High on the mast so tall and stately —

Dark-red in hue — They set them firmly, set them surely,

Set them true. Round the iron pegs the ropes ran,

Each its right ring through; Thus having ranged the tackle rarely,

Well and carefully. Every man sat waiting bravely,

Where he ought to be ; For now the airy windows opened,

And from spots of bluish grey ; Let loose the keen and crabbed wild winds —

A fierce band were they.

* Any one who has watched a threatening February morning in the Hebrides, will be at no loss to perceive that this vigorous description has been taken directly from Nature. The varied colours of the sky, and the wild aspect of the sea, are particularly striking.

ALEXANDER MACDONALD.

And then his dark grey cloak the ocean

Round him drew — Dusky, livid, ruffled, whirling,

Round, at first, it flew ; Till up he swell'd to mountains, or to glens,

Dishevelled, rough, sank down — And the kicking, tossing waters

All in hills had grown ; Its blue depths opening in huge maws,

Wild and devouring, Down which clasped in deadly struggles

Fierce, strong waves were pouring. It took a man to look the storm-winds

Right in the face — As they lit up the sparkling spray on every surge hill,

In their fiery race. The waves before us shrilly yelling,

Raised their high heads hoar, While those behind, with moaning trumpets,

Gave a bellowing roar. When we rose up aloft, majestic,

On the heaving swell, Need was to pull in our canvas

Smart and well. When she sank down with one huge swallow

In the hollow glen, Every sail she bore aloft

Was given to her then. The drizzling surges high and roaring

Rush'd on us louting; Long ere they were near us come,

We heard their shouting. They roll'd, sweeping up the little waves,

Scourging them bare, Till all became one threatening swell,

Our steersman's care. When down we fell from oif the billows'

Towering shaggy edge,

24 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

Our keel was well nigh hurled against

The shells and sedge ; The whole sea was lashing, dashing,

All through other. It kept the seals and mightiest monsters

In a pother. The fury and the surging of the water,

And our good ship's swift way Spatter' d their white brains on each billow,

Livid and grey. With piteous wailing and complaining,

All the storm-toss' d horde, Shouted out, "We're now your subjects;

Drag us on board." And the small fish of the ocean

Turn'd over their white breast — Dead, innumerable, with the raging

Of the furious sea's unrest. The stones and shells of the deep channel

Were in motion ; Swept from out their lowly bed

By the tumult of the ocean ; Till the sea, like a great mess of pottage,

Troubled, muddy grew With the blood of many mangled creatures,

Dirty red in hue — Where the horn'd and clawy wild beasts,

Short-footed, splay; With great wailing gumless mouths

Huge and wide open lay. But the whole deep was full of spectres,

Loose and sprawling, With the claws and with the tails of monsters

Pawing, squalling. It was frightful even to hear them

Screech so loudly ; The sound might move full fifty heroes

Stepping proudly.

ALEXANDER MACDONALD.

Our whole crew grew dull of hearing

In the tempest's scowl, So sharp the quavering cries of demons

And the wild beasts' howl. With oaken planks the weltering waves were wrestling

In their noisy splashing; While the sharp beak of our swift ship

On the sea-pigs* came dashing. The wind kept still renewing all its wildness

In the far west, Till with every kind of strain and trouble

We were sore distress' d. We were blinded with the water

Showering o'er us ever ; And the awful night like thunder,

And the lightning ceasing never. The bright fire-balls in our tackling

Flamed and smoked ; With the smell of burning brimstone

We were well-nigh choked. All the elements above, below,

Against us wrought ; Earth and wind, and fire and water,

With us fought. But when it defied the sea

To make us yield ; At last, with one bright smile of pity,

Peace with us she seal'd. But not before our yards were injured,

And our sails were rent, Our poops were strained, our oars were weaken'd,

All our masts were bent. Not a stay we had but started,

Our tackling all was wet and splashy,

25

Sea-pigs (muca-mara) are porpoises.

26 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

Nails and couplings twisted, broken.

Feeshie, fashie.* All the thwarts and all the gunwale

Everywhere confess' d, And all above and all below,

How sore they had been press'd. Not a bracket, not a rib,

But the storm had loosed; Fore and aft, from stem to stern,

All had got confused. Not a tiller but was split,

And the helm was wounded ; Every board its own complaint

Sadly sounded. Every trenel, every fastening

Had been giving way ; Not a board remain' d as firm

As at the break of day . Not a bolt in her but started,

Not a rope the wind that bore, Not a part of the whole vessel

But was weaker than before. The sea spoke to us its peace prattle

At the cross of Islay's Kyle. And the rough wind, bitter boaster !

Was restrained for one good while. It rose from off us into places

Lofty in the npper air, And after all its noisy barking

Ruffled round us fair. Then we gave thanks to the High King,

Who rein'd the wind's rude breath,

* Fise, faise ! pronounced as above, occur here in the original. They are mere expletives, and have no meaning.

ALEXANDER MACDONALD.

saved our good Clan-Ranald

From a bad and brutal death. Then we furl'd up the fine and speckled sails

Of linen wide, And we took down the smooth, red dainty masts,

And laid them by the side. On our long and slender polish'd oars

Together leaning — They were all made of the fir cut by MacBarais

In Eilean Fionain. We went with our smooth, dashing rowing,

And steady shock, Till we reach' d the good port round the point

Of Fergus' Rock.* There casting anchor peacefully,

We calmly rode ; We got meat and drink in plenty,

And there we abode.

THE SUGAR BROOK.

Passing by the Sugar Brook,

In fragrant morn of May ; When, like bright shining rosaries,

The dew on green grass lay ; I heard the robin's treble,

Deep Richard's bass awake ; And the shy and blue-winged cuckoo,

Shout "goog-goo" in the brake.

* Fergus' Rock, or Carrickfergus.

t Alt-an-t-siucair, or the Sugar Brook, is a small stream in the north west of Argyleshire, that falls into the Sound of Mull

28 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

The thrush there threw its steam off,

Upon a stake alone : And the brown wren so blithsome,

Had music of its own. The linnet with a jealous bend,

Tuned up his choicest string ; The black-cock he was croaking,

The hen did hoarsely sing.

The trout kept leaping nimbly,

With merry plunge and play ; Dimpling the burn with sprightly tricks,

Warm in the sunny ray. Their blade-blue back and spotted gills,

Gleamed with their gemlike scales; When with a dash they snapt the fly,

That careless wandering sails.

How sweet, and swift, and limpid,

Fast whirling soft of sound ; The Sugar Brook's rough torrent wave,

That sweeps and murmurs round. All grasses, herbs, and wild flowers,

Close to its borders rise ; Which, with the sappy source of life,

Its pleasant stream supplies.

This clean transparent streamlet,

That flows so bright and clear ; With the soul of growth and motion,

Fills all the meadows near : Where fly the yellow-red bees,

And tickle golden flowers; To fill with store of honey sweet,

The wax-cell in their bowers.

A soothing sound is that which comes, From the loud-bellowing kye ;

ALEXANDER MAODONALD.

As to their speckled, giddy calves

From the fold the dams reply : Where the milkmaid with her buara,*

Lists to the herdsman's tale ; When sitting by the brindled cow,

She fills her foaming pail.

The wailing swans their murmurs blend,

With birds that float and sing ; Where joins the Sugar Brook the sea,

Their tuneful voices ring. Softly sweet they bend and breathe,

Through their melodious throat, Like the mournful, crooked bagpipe,

A sad but pleasing note.

0 ! dainty is the graving work,

By Nature near the wrought ! Whose fertile banks with shining flowers,

And 'pallid buds are fraught. The shamrock and the daisy,

Spread o'er thy borders fair, Like new-made spangles, or like stars,

From out the frosty air.

Ah ! what a charming sight display,

Thy ruddy, rosy braes ; When sunbeams dye their flowers as bright,

As brilliants all a-blaze : And what a civil suit they wear,

Of rib grass and of hay ; And gay-topt herbs o'er which the birds,

Pour forth their pompous lay.

29

* Buara, fetters made of horse huir, and used for those cows that were apt to kick while being milked.

MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

0 Lily ! king of flowers — thou

Then ew rose hast outdone ; In bunches round of tender hue,

And white-crown like the sun : To keep the Sugar Brook from harm,

As amulets are given, Such stars to sparkle 'where it winds,

Like guiding lights in heaven!

Green sorrel too and rushes,

Sprout thick around its wold ; And slender waving stalks that look

Like well turned work in gold : Its brakes are full of mossy nests,

Round wreathed for birds to stay ; Where boughs wave o'er the tassell'd grass,

Or touch the curling spray.

'T would med'cine any fading sight,

That could the swift ships spy : In white and swelling canvas drest,

Close to thy banks go by : Their fir-masts light and handy,

With hempen ropes arrayed — While down the cold torn Sound of Mull,

The north blast keenly strayed.

The corri best in till the land,

Of rich and sappy lea", Is the <corri of the Sugar Brook —

The com loved by me. The corri rough and lovely,

Where soft tufts thickly lie ; And water runs o'er sands that seem

Crushed sugar to the eye!

The corri of the foals and lambs, Of kids and lonely cows ;

ALEXANDER MACDONALD.

The corri of the verdant glens, Where calves so early browse.

The wooded, rushy corri,

Where the cuckoo sings in March,

And the otters and the foxes' haunts The old grey cairns o'er arch.

The corri where the sheep in scores,

Spread with their young away; And stretch with fat their bursting skins,

So warm, and white, and grey ; Thus, good for food and clothing,

Through thy wild glens they go — Thou lovely, lofty corri,

That dost with grace o'erflow.

Thou corri where the ducks and drakes,

And curlews haunt the shore ; Thou corri which the full grown stags,

And heath-cock wander o'er; 'Tis time I ceased to number,

Thy many a pleasant show; Thine isles, and groves, and grassy plains,

Where milk and honey flow.

31

Alexander Macdonald lived so long in the small Island of Canna, that he seems to have come to regard the mainland of Argyle, at one time, with the eyes and feelings of an Hebridian; as the following poem, "A Hail to the Mainland," shows.

The Island of Canna is thus described by Pennant, who visited it in the year 1775; when it could have changed but little, if at all, from the appearance it wore in Macdonald's day: — "As soon as we had time to cast our eyes about, each shore appeared pleas- ing to humanity : verdant and covered with hundreds of cattle ; both sides gave a full idea of plenty — for the verdure was mixed

with very little rock, and scarcely any heath

The length of the Island is about three miles, and the breadth,

32 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

near one; its surface hilly. This was the property of the Bishop of the Isles; but at present, that of Mr. Macdonald of Clan- Ranald. His factor, a resident agent, rents most of the Island : paying two guineas for each penny-land; and these he lets to the poor people, at four and a half guineas each ; and exacts, besides this, three days' labour in the quarter from each person. Another head tenant possesses other penny-lands, which he lets in the same manner to the impoverished and very starving of the wretched inhabitants."

According to Reid, Macdonald, when a young man, was ground agent or under factor in this little Island ; and was very much in the company of the head factor, whose society, the same authority assures us, did him no good. For it was principally to gratify the depraved taste of this patron of his, that the poet, it seems, composed some of his pieces which are not very creditable now to his memory in point of good taste and right feeling.

An explanation of the lines in which Macdonald says of the Mainland or Mor'ir, that

Blest with plenty, to thee never Comes the spring time trying;

will be found in the following statement of Pennant's when speaking of Canna: — "The isles, I fear, annually experience a temporary famine; perhaps from improvidence; perhaps from eagerness to increase their stock of cattle, which they can easily dispose of to satisfy the demands of their landlords, or the oppressions of an agent."

The Mor'ir, on account of the richness of its soil, or the beneficence of its landlords, was free from this periodical suffer- ing. This little trait is worth mentioning, since it is pleasant to find Macdonald, notwithstanding his connection with the factor of Canna, showing his sympathies, however slightly, on the gener- ous side of a question — as a poet ought always to do.

ALEXANDER MACDONALD.

33

HAIL TO THE MAINLAND.

HAIL to thee, thou bonny Mainland !

In the Beltane glowing ; Golden, sunny, green-dad Mainland !

Rosy burn-banks showing.

Blest with plenty, to thee never Comes the spring-time trying ;

Bird-loved jewelled are thy hill sides, With green tree-tops sighing.

Thy woods so gay, are surely clad in

Wedding garments fairly ; Straths and mountains here are lovely,

Glens are tinted rarely.

When the sun-rise gilds the mountains,

Then the bee goes snoring ; Ruddy bee that tickles flow'rets,

And hums — honey storing.

Now the brisk trout leaps the eddies, And droll flies keeps chasing ;

While a green flag o'er the fountains, Every knoll is raising.

And buds are swelling, full of fragrance,

Blue, and red, and paly : • Musical the slender sprays are,

Where the birds dance gaily.

Cosy rushy beds the fold has, In the summer wreather;

MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

Foamy, creamy milk in beakers, Herdsmen quaff together.

Butter, curds, and whey, in streamlets, Lappered milk they 're sharing ;

Brink unmeasured set before us, With no thought of sparing.

FLOWERS.

(FROM THE ODE TO SUMMER.)

0 PRIMROSE ! that growest

So pallid and sweet on the brae, In tender tufts blowing,

In curly leaves flowing — The hardiest flower art thou

Sprung from the clay ; Thus wearing thy spring-dress

While others still slumber away.

And wreath of -Cuchulinn of cairns,

How pleasant the odour that's shed, Where tasselled and brindled,

With legs long and spindled, Rough clustered, modest hued,

Yellow-tipt, high o'er-head, Round the lone knolls we see thee

With wood-sorrel spread.

ALEXANDER MACDONALD.

BIRDS.

(FROM THE ODE TO WINTER.)

SORROW lies on the earth all around,

And the hill and the mountain grow bare ; Fast darkens the face of the ground,

Shorn and bare, faint and withered with care. All the speckled birds, tuneful and sweet,

Erst that sang' from the top of the tree, Have their pleasant mouth's gagged when we meet

They have lost bow and string — lost their glee.

The winged folk now of the sky,

Cease their sunny songs here for a space; Nor their matins they carol on high,

Nor with vespers the holy eve grace. But in chill caves all sleepy they stay,

And cow'r cold in the holes of the crag, Where they miss much the warm glancing ray,

Whose bright sheen made their summer songs

There's a dark frown on Europe throughout

Since the strength of the sun grew so wan, Whose light spreads such solace about —

The Lamp by which all things we scan ; But when to the Twins he comes back,

And beams on these regions again, A bright hue the rough hills shall not lack,

Nor the gold gleaming heaps of the main.

And those psalmists, then spotted anew, In their close leafy pulpits shall stand,

Hymns and praises to sing as their due, Since the Summer time shines on the land

36 MODERN GAELIC BAEDS.

They have meetings the green boughs among, And rare^pews in'each soft~ tender spray,

And they pour forth the offering of song On their slender tipt wings far away.

There is none 'neath the cup of the sky,

But returns to his spirit once more, When Phoebus that shines from on high,

The might of their souls shall restore : Then they rise up at once from the grave,

Where the cold kept them chilly and dumb, Saying, "gooly-dro-hidolo-haive,

Winter's gone and the Summer has come"

THE GROUSE COCK AND HEN.

THE grouse leaving the'green buds,

That dapple the spray, Takes his short beaked and speckled spouse

To the mountains away ; Like a courtier there wooes her,

Where the shade of the heather is cool ; Though still she laughs hoarsely,

"Pee-hoo-hoo, yo'u're a fool!"

MORAG AND OTHER BELLES.

A FACE I never"saw,

Since my dawning days — Not one so free of flaw,

Full of glorious grace ;

ALEXANDER MACDONALD.

Though Mally still was mild,

And her cheek like rowans wild, As fickle as the wind she smiled,

When it drones and strays. Peggy had a slight

Trace of age's blight ; Marsaly was light,

Full of saucy ways. Lilly's love was bright,

Though a speck had dimmed her sight, But they were all as tame and trite

As washing suds to Morag.

It is unfortunate that from the nature of the Song in Praise of Morag — in many respects, a very beautiful one, from which this short extract is taken — a fair translation of it, as a whole, is a thing on which no one is very likely to venture. Macdonald was a married man when he saw the young girl, Morag, whose beauty he celebrates in a strain very impassioned, though not always very decorous or refined.

An idea of the poem he produced on the occasion, may be formed from some of Burns' Songs in which the rapture, though indubitable, is far from being of the highest kind — with this difference, however, that Burns' Songs consist of two or three stanzas only, while Macdonald's is an elaborate composition of about three hundred and fifty lines in length. It is in a sort of rhythm peculiar to the Highlands — of which a farther account will be given under the head of Maclntyre's "Ben Dorain."

FROM THE SONG OF THE HIGHLAND CLANS.

0 ! LOVED and loyal Kindred,

Choice homage now give ye ; Let no mote cloud your eyesight —

Your heart from care keep free.

MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

The health of James Stuart

With welcome send it round ; Without reserve receive it —

This holy pledge we sound.

Now fill a draught for Charlie —

Rogue ! let this cup o 'erflow ; Ha ! 'tis a balm to heal our hearts —

Revive us when we 're low. Yea! should death's hand be laying us

Weak, wan beside the grave, Oh, Universal King ! return —

Return him o'er the wave.

Hard is the case of all his friends,

Because of his delay ; They are like a callow orphan'd brood —

Like garden bees, a prey To the destructive fox, when faint

They drop along the brae; Come quickly with thy fleet, and drive

Thy people's plague away.

Macdonald is said to have gone over the Highlands singing the Song from which these verses are taken, and rousing his country- men with its energetic appeals to rise and join Prince Charles. The rest of the Song consists of an address to all the Clans successively, so very similar to that contained in the Clan Song in Waverley, "There is mist on the mountain and night on the vale," that a reader of Sir Walter Scott's spirited imitation will be able to form an exceedingly correct notion, both of the nature of this and all other Clan Songs of the Highlands.

Also, a species of Clan Song is Macdonald's poem entitled, "The Praise of the Lion," in which he celebrates so cordially the prowess, valour, and greatness of all the septs that bore his own dis- tinguished name. It is, at the same time, no unfair specimen of those War-songs, or Battle incitements, as they were called, with

ALEXANDER MACDOI

which the bards, from very remote ages, used to animate their friends and kinsmen when about to engage in battle.

Some of these, of an old date, are still extant and well known. The most extraordinary of them, in every respect, is one composed by Lachlan Mor Mac Vurich Albanich, hereditary bard of Clan- Ranald, and chanted by him to his clansmen at the battle of Har- law, 1411. This most unique production consists of three hun- dred and thirty eight lines; the theme of the whole being, "0 Children of Conn of the hundred fights ! remember hardihood in the time of battle." Round this theme the Bard has gathered no fewer than six hundred and fifty adverbial adjectives, arranged in alphabetical order, and all bearing a special and bloody reference to the subject in hand.

The Poem contains nothing else but these adjectives. There is not much that can be called poetry about them ; but yet, when supplied without hesitation by a good memory in all their aston- ishing alliterative array, by a ready speaker, gifted with a strong and sensitive voice, they could not but have offered a rare oppor- tunity for impetuous, vehement and effective declamation. A man of good presence, as Lachlan Mor probably was, hurling them forth in this way on his audience, with flashing eye and fiery, and appropriate gesture, must have created no small stir and excite- ment among the valiant children of Conn : even with a string of sonorous adjectives — a good many of them too compounded by himself, with no little ingenuity for the occasion.

Alexander Macdonald, in his Song in Praise of the Lion, is suffi- ciently ferocious und complimentary to the Macdonalds to have pleased Lachlan Mor himself. Rather than leave out any portion of his Clan's due meed of praise, he has perhaps said nearly the same thing more than once over, in slightly different words. This, however, is not more than two or three times the case, and does not lessen the value of the lyric, as a spirited, energetic production —full of ardour and poetic fire. It will contrast pleasantly with those soft and tender descriptions of Nature that have just been given; and show, along with them, the variety of bardic power possessed by the author. As a piece of animated war-poetry, not

40 MODERN GAELIC BAEDS.

unworthy of any lyric writer, may be cited the four stanzas in the succeeding Poem, following from, " Strong rock, and everlasting," down to, " Groaning hard and moaning, resound the site of battle o'er." These display, not merely vigorous composition, but genu- ine feeling. The Poet is describing what he really admired, and would have joined in himself. He is not like too many of our most martial poets, working up a safe effervesence, for the sake of effect; and crying, "Ha-ha!" amid a dim fancy of trumpet sounds— a proceeding not commendable, being so evidently the very reverse of their natural propensity.

THE PRAISE OF THE LION. To the Air of "Caberfae."

HAIL ! thou rending Lion,

Of matchless force and pompous pride ! When up thy chieftains roused them,

Gay banners flutter'd far and wide. All thy tribes would gather,

With martial pace and manly grace ; Then losses came and crosses

On every foe that met with them ; Their line so splendid, far extended —

Fiery, flaming, furious; A stormful path, their joyous wrath,

With gory blades carved curious. With sharp rage, wild war wage,

Heads, and limbs, and trunks they 'd hack; No soft foe with swords could go

To keep the haughty heroes back.

Wake yet, thou battling Lion !

Wake and rise with sounding stir —

ALEXANDER MAODONALD.

So tawny on thy white flag,

With thy badge of heather, sir ; Raise thy head so airily,

In the blue sky restlessly, And to the fray, as well 's I may,

Will I go and fight for thee. Oh ! let me raise the precious praise

Of that head, so royal held ; This realm is fair, but none hath e'er

Throughout its bounds thy might excell'd : In hardihood so firm and good —

Lovely, free of fear and doubt, With vigorous zest in terror's breast,

Thee thy clansmen flock'd about.

Oh ! who could taunt or tease thee,

.Or with mean things disparage thee, Or venture to displease thee,

Or once hope to discourage thee, Thou kingly splendid creature ?

So fierce, full form'd, and fairly seen, On thy silken pennon clean,

With fine smooth mast of sapling green. There thou flutterest, proudly, loudly,

Flapping fast and saucily ; While a gallant host heroic

Stand beneath thee gaucily : Rage for bloodshed makes their brows red —

Rage and wrath to follow thee ; Now slaughtering blades and death's cold shades

Will come on all who slighted thee.

Ne'er backward nor inglorious — The noble race thou well dost grace ;

But prosperous and victorious,

In battle bright and great in might ;

With guns, and swords, and shields of gold, And corslets — what a deadly set !

KF GAELIC

Their glaives they plied, and deep and wide The wounds they gave to all they met.

Powder blazing — war smoke raising, Till a cloud about them grew ;

The lively, fair, and quick youths there Then cut ribs and marrow through :

With bitter blades — thick-back' d, dark blue- In every stubborn stripling's hand,

That cleft the sturdiest body through — My joy! I think their pride was grand.

Sufficient, strong, and manly —

A daring band, and clanish all — The race of Collai red hand —

Full of might and spirits, tall. Keen their ire as flames of fire,

When March's wind put strength in them- Without failing, rust, or ailing,

In the breadth or length of them. With buoyant life they go to strife,

No dread of wounds can hold them back , They need no strain to make them fain,

Hearts, and brains, and reins they whack; Heads they sweep off — hands and feet off —

In the smoke, with battle's mirth — Each one so brave, with hardy glaive,

So manly, sjiarp, and full of worth.

The lovely race — the daring —

Well equipp'd in war array, Their long smooth muskets wearing,

So deadly in the dread affray ; With lock, and flint, and hammer

Ready trimm'd to give the blow- That sends away the powder grey,

In a bright and fiery glow. Then bullets red in showers are sped,

Through smoke and roar and lustre quick,

ALEXANDER MACDONALD,

That smash and slay and crush and bray The cassock'd bodies short and thick;

With broken bones and piteous groans On the field they toss and kick,

When like wasps in your strong grasps You wield your blades, so sharp and slick,

Clan-Donald, I am saying,

Right honourable race are they ; Oft the conflict swaying,

Their foes they grandly swept away ; They are fearless, bright, and peerless,

Full of stinging venom too — Like serpents on the mountains bred,

Their hardy blades so sharp and blue. Smart and airy, wild and wary,

With quick hands that nothing mars; Hard as rocks and swift as meteors,

Their whistling strokes are heard afar : My manly men, shamefast * and nimble,

Solid, strong, and firm, and sure ; Like the flood's course that thunders hoarse,

Or flames that light the mountain moor.

Strong rock, and everlasting,

Hard, and old, and undecay'd, High thy royal crest show,

For thousands gather in thy shade,

* Shamefast (" narach," susceptible of shame). This was a much esteemed quality in the Highlands, even in soldiers. The Highlanders, while fighting the battles of their country, and billeted among the various peoples, at home and abroad, were designated, " lambs in the house and lions in the field." There is another word something like this one in appearance — "naisinn," implying a delicate and almost morbid sense of moral obligation — which is frequently heard still, and always applied only when a man is commended. These two words are very character- istically Highland, and are both extremely creditable to the moral feelings of the people among whom they took their origin and are in constant use.

44 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

With mirth, in their armour bright —

The dauntless race that never yield — The spectres that stir panic flight,

When quick striking swords they wield. Many gallant youths beneath -fchee,

With stout hands and shoulders great, Go rushing on where honour's won,

For wild fight they 're never late : With steady foot and agile hand

To thrust or cut, each weapon gleams; Red on the ground death gasps around,

But gay o'er head the Lion streams.

Thou roaring, frowning Lion!

Who fright and fear canst spread about — Often proved where war has moved,

In furious fight or turbid rout ; When thy semblance, looking dire,

From the tough staff flutters free, Then a kindling, troubled fire

On every cheek around we see. Strong, and steady, stubborn, ready,

Is their rank where strife is hot; Fear of foe they never know —

They are rocks that tremble not ; Group'd together, fleeing never,

Unyielding wood of oak are they, — Their shout of triumph's oft been heard

O'er fields of death where foemen lay.

If violence should assail thee

From strangers' bounds, and seek thy hurt; If foemen should draw near thee,

With ill will, and strife, and sturt, Many an Islay hilt* then,

* Islay hilts, invented by a celebrated smith of the name of Mac Each- ern, who lived in Islay, were famous all over the Highlands. " Blades

ALEXANDER MACDONALD.

With a strong, smooth blade in it, Beneath thy silken stream would gleam

To fight for thee and succour thee. Thine are men who would not bend

In showers that pierce the body through ; Nor yet be slow to rise and go

Where heads were hack'd and fury grew ; When, over all the tumult spread,

The thundering pipes were heard afar, That might put spirit in the dead

To rise for gallant deeds of war.

Clan-Donald's tree is all thine,

Its bough and branches ever held, As true a wood as ever stood —

Chieftain-like, unparallel'd; When all its tribes came trooping round

So manly, where the Lion's seen, Then woe betide whoever tried

To pluck his beard or rouse his spleen. Their hands and heads you 'd lop and prune

With the glittering claymore's sweep, Till on the grass their blood would splash,

And run in little streams and creep; Your stinging dark-blue blades would make

The heads of Galls* to steam in gore ; And groaning hard and moaning,

Kesound the site of battle o'er.

Where in all this kingdom,

Are men of deed your race excel ?

45

with Tslay heads," were considered the very finest and most efficient weapons.

* Gall, though usually applied to the Lowlanders, here means any one unfriendly to the Macdonalds. There is an old song on the massacre of Glencoe, in which the Campbells, and all who had a hand in that bloody tragedy, are called Galls.

46 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

When songs incite you to the fight,

Your thousand virtues who can tell ? You anvils strong and precious,

Of true steel that weakens not, Who always have been faithful,

And word of truth have ne'er forgot; Hounds of fight, like arrows' flight,

Down with glistening swords you break, Nor rest a moment till a breach

Through and through your foes you make ; Trunks are cleft and steel is shaken,

You feel a bloody, bloody thirst ; Battle raves and whistling glaives,

And dreadful shout around you burst.

There are thousands now in Alba

As stout as are in any land ; The grey Gaels from Scota,*

Who cheerful round your colours stand ; With love of hardy deeds and bold,

They fasten round you steadily, Where the Lion's furious hold,

And his paws shine bloodily. Bring with you then your well fed men —

Your stately, stalwart heroes show — Your dexterous, lively, active line,

Who with a will to battle go ; You ne'er were seen where strife was keen,

To blench or shun its reddest tide ; But foes have fled, where'er have been

Their speckled banner fluttering wide!

* " Scota," in this last stanza, occurs in the original, but is printed in italics. The Scots are said to have been a Celtic tribe from Ireland. If this is the case, it is very singular that the name, " Scot," is not only utterly unknown in the Highlands — except through books — but has even no connection whatever with the Gaelic language. The name " Caledo- nia,*' though never used now\ is different. It has a Gaelic derivation.

DUNCAN BAN MACINTYRE.

DUNCAN BAN MACINTYRE, the Hunter Bard of Glenorchy, on whom his admiring countrymen have long agreed to confer the flattering title "of the Songs," was born on the 20th of March, 1724, at Druimliaghart in Glenorchy, Argyleshire. His parents living on the outskirts of a large and thinly populated district had no opportunity of sending their son to the distant parish school: the only one, seemingly, which a wide extent of country offered in those days, for the acquisition, even of the common rudiments of education. So this future poet never learned, either to read or to write, Yet though thus destitute of the very elements of school learning — though he lived a simple life in a humble station, and never had the benefit of a large experience of society to fur- nish his mind with the materials of thought — though he never associated with learned men whose conversation might stimulate, direct, and cultivate his faculties, he has left behind him a name which is not likely soon to perish. He deserves to be remembered, not only on account of his really genuine gift of song, and of his fresh and truly beautiful poetry, but has also a claim on our remembrance, even on account of his wonderful memory. Well nigh six thousand lines of his poetry have been published — all of which he must have composed, arranged, and carried about with him in his mind for years ; and this too independent of what he knew of the popular poetry of his country, with which he was well acquainted, and of which he is said to have picked up, by ear, a large quantity. Along with this his poetry is thoroughly national. It is pervaded and enlivened by the very spirit of Highland scenery, and embalms though unconsciously, yet with good effect the tone of that phase of life of which the Bard him- self partook, and even for these reasons too he will have some hold on the consideration of posterity, and a hold which will not likely

48 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

be, at least for a time, a decreasing one. Duncan Ban is said to have early manifested that strong passion for field sports which distinguished him to the very last. As a youth, in his lonely and wild but romantic habitation, with his strong natural tastes, his inquisitive and observant mind, and his musical and poetic tempera- ment, he may be supposed to have passed his time and nursed his rising genius — having the appearance, to a casual observer, of such another roving young mountaineer, as Captain Dalgetty describes in the grandson of Ranald Mac Eagh — "a smart and hopeful youth, whom I have noted to be never without a pebble in his plaid-nook to fling at whatever might come in his way, being a symbol that, like David who was accustomed to sling smooth stones taken from the brook — he may afterwards prove an adventurous warrior." By and bye, the pebble in the plaid-nook would be exchanged for a fishing-rod, and then a gun ; for Duncan Ban became a noted marksman in his maturer years, and was so fond of his guns that he mentions them very frequently in his poetry, as if they were dear friends and companions, and composed a song expressly for each of the three principal weapons of this sort which he possessed during his life.

His first song was composed on a sword with which he was armed at the Battle of Falkirk — where he served on the royalist side as substitute for a neighbouring gentleman. This sword the poet lost or threw away in the retreat, on his return home ; there- fore, the gentleman to whom it belonged, and whose substitute he had been, refused to pay thesum for which he had engaged Duncan Ban to serve in his stead. Duncan consequently composed his Song on " The Battle of the Speckled Kirk"— as Falkirk is called in Gaelic, in which he good-humouredly satirised the gentleman who had sent him to the war, and gave a woeful description of "the black sword that waked the turmoil," and whose loss, he says, made its owner "as fierce and furious as a grey brock in his den." The song immediately became popular and incensed his employer so much, that he suddenly fell upon the poor poet one day with his walking-stick, and striking him on the back, bade him "go and make a song about that." He was, however, afterwards

compelled by the Earl of Breadalbane to pay the bard the sum of 300 merks Scots (£ 16 : 17 : 6) which was his legal due.

This Earl of Breadalbane was always a great patron of Duncan Ban's, and appointed him his forester and gamekeeper in Corri Ceathach and Ben Dorain — places which the Bard has celebrated in his two finest poems, so successfully that their names have now something of the same charm to a Gaelic ear as Loch-Katrine or the Banks of the Doon bear to that of the English reader. He for a short time afterwards served the Duke of Argyle in the same capacity of forester at Buachaill Eite.

Then he joined the Earl of Breadalbane's fencible Regiment, raised in 1793, and remained with it, holding the rank of sergeant until 1799, when it was disbanded. For sometime after this he belonged to the city-guard of Edinburgh, so celebrated by Sir Walter Scott, and by Ferguson the poet. He remained in the city-guard until 1806, after which time, according to his biographers, he was "enabled to live in comparative comfort on his little savings, and the profit of the third edition of his poems, published in 1804." He died in Edinburgh, May, 1812, in his eighty-ninth year. He was buried in the Greyfriars churchyard, in that city, on the 19th of May. A notice of his death appear- ing in one of the Edinburgh papers, but not till the following October.

About twenty-two years after the composition of his first song on the Battle of the Speckled Kirk, Duncan Ban became so famous as a poet, that his friends thought his verses worthy of a wider circulation than his singing or theirs could give them, and the son of a neighbouring clergyman, himself afterwards well known as Dr. Stewart of Luss, one of the translators of the Gaelic Bible, was at the trouble of taking them down to the poet's own dictation, with a view to their publication. They were accord- ingly printed in Edinburgh, and published in the year 1768, with the following title: — "Gaelic Songs, by Duncan Maclntyre." They were of course in one volume, not large, consisting of 162 pages, 12mo.

A second edition, with many additions, appeared in 1790, when G

50 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

the poet travelled over a good part of the Highlands, disposing of the issue. The third edition came out in 1804. There have been three editions since — making six in all. But in the shape of extracts, the favourite poems, like " The Last Farewell to the Hills," &c., have appeared in many other books besides. There are Highlanders too who knew Duncan Ban, and have learnt to sing his Songs, who never read them at all.

With regard to the poet's personal appearance we know that he was called Ban, on account of his fair hair; and his biographers tell us, that in his youth he was remarkably handsome. There are still living people who saw him, and have a distinct recollection of him as a fine and striking looking old man — venerable and patriarchal, with his silvery hair and his long pilgrim staff — a man to attract notice, and treated always with the greatest respect, wherever he was known. It is said he possessed a very easy and agreeable disposition ; although, when greatly provoked, he could let his enemies feel the power of his satire, as may be seen from verses he composed on an impudent piper, named Uisdeau, who lampooned him — he never failed in his attachment or his gratitude to his friends. "He was like the rest of the poets, very fond of company and a social glass; and was not only very pleasant over his bottle, but very circumspect."

As a poet, his great characteristics are his clear and sure perception, his fine ear, his excellent judgment, and his command of his native language, which he invariably uses with admirable precision, purity, and effect. f He sings always of things which he knew well — things which he had learnt for himself — things which he was quite sure of — which were not the least obscure to him. He is always self-possessed and master of himself. His mind never drifts helmless before an overpowering emotion ; yet his verse is essentially lyrical, even in description — and frequently expressive of deep and genuine feeling — of sweet and unchanging devotion. His style is clear and simple. His rhythm varied, free, and sonorous. In reading Duncan Ban one feels that he was a sweet- tempered, amiable, unaffected man. Perhaps it is partly owing to this, as well as to the fine faculty his poetry displays, that he is

DUNCAN BAN MACINTYHE. ."> 1

decidedly the best loved of the Highland Bards. But so excellent were his gifts that, notwithstanding his want of culture, no other of the Gaelic Poets is held in the same esteem, or placed on the same level with him, excepting Alexander Macdonald. These two are universally considered and spoken of as the chief singers among the mountain melodists. Sometimes the one is preferred, sometimes the other. Duncan Ban had less variety — less wild vigour than his predecessor — but he is clearer, smoother, more equable, more harmonious. Then something must be allowed for his untutored efforts, — for that ever blind "groping of the Cyclops" — that utter want of one limitless external aid, which claims for him so unique a place among his country's most dis- tinguished Bards. If some consideration might be demanded for Burns, and justly too, (were it not for his mighty powers) on account of his imperfect training, and his want of leisure for mental labour, still more might be asked for this man ; for Burns was learned compared to him, yet he too does not need it — a proof of the reality and purity of his master gift.

The pictures of the external things, animate and inanimate, with which he was acquainted, are not inferior for truth, vividness and beauty, to those of any descriptive poet. His address to his wife — Mairi bhan 6g — may be read beside the sweetest and most expressive of the Lowland lyrics — while it certainly breathes a refined courtesy and a purity of sentiment which these do not always possess, and which is not in any wray insignificant in such a man, whether taken as an index of his moral nature, of his intellectual endowments, or of the kindness of nature in gifting him with such unaffected manliness and good taste. How much education and more favourable circumstances might have done for Duncan Ban Maclntyre as a poet, it will ever remain impossible to determine. As it is, his admirers need have no hesitation in claiming for him a higher and more noticeable place, than he now possesses, among the " tuneful dead, whose names are honoured by his nation."

MODERN GAELIC BAKI»s

INTRODUCTION TO BEN DORAIN.

•

IN the celebrated poem which Duncan Ban dedicates to the hill, Ben Dorain, he throws the whole soul of the hunter Bard, and true poetic son of nature into his description of the place and of its sprightly denizens. This poem, consisting of five hundred and fifty-five lines, is the longest of Duncan Ban's compositions. It is adapted to a pipe tune, into all the varieties of whose wild rhythm he moulds his language throughout with such spirit and success, that even considered as a piece of elaborate versification, carried out to such a length, and on so unique a plan, it is no small feat to have been achieved by such an author, and so circumstanced, that it was only by crooning it over in his memory he could give his diction the necessary finish.

The poem is divided into eight parts, corresponding to the variations of the pibroch, which, as Duncan Ban understood it, seems to have been made up of what he calls the "Urlar" and "Siubhal," played alternately — the first four times repeated, and the last three times — the whole ending with the "Crunluath," or quick motion. The following passage is entirely from the first of these heads — the "Urlar," which is the one indeed chiefly used by the poet — nearly the half of "Ben Dorain" being constructed altogether of this measure — and its principal peculiarity which consists of a regular and frequent occurrence of the broad sound of o, or au, to round every cadence being found throughout the poem. This was done to imitate a certain quality of the bag- pipe, which goes far to give its tones their own fierce and warlike character. The Gaelic language, in which the broad sound of o is very common, falls into this rhythm very easily, and with good effect. It is more of a novelty in English, and the reader will do well to bear its nature in mind, when reading the following extract from "Ben Dorain."

DUNCAN BAN MACINTYRE.

BEN DORAIN.

THE honour o'er each hill

Hath Ben Dorain; Scene, to me, the sweetest still

That day dawns upon : Its long moor's level way,

And its nooks whence wild deer stray, To the lustre on the brae

Oft I 've lauded them.

Dear to me its dusky boughs,

In the wood where green grass grows, And the stately herd repose,

Or there wander slow ; But the troops with bellies white,

When the chase comes into sight, Then I love to watch their flight,

Going nosily.

The stag is airy, brisk, and light,

And no pomp has he ; Though his garb 's the fashion quite,

Never haughty he : Yet a mantle 's round him spread,

Not soon threadbare, then shed, And its hue as wax is red —

Fairly clothing him.

The delight I felt to rise

At the morning's call ! And to see the troops I prize

The hills thronging all : Ten score with stately tread,

And with light uplifted head,

/)•! MODERN GAELIC BAUDS.

Quite unpampered there that fed, Fond and fawning all.

Lightsomely there came

From each clean and shapely frame, Through their murmuring lips, a tame

Chant, with drawling fall. In the pool one rolled a low —

With the hind one played the beau, As she trotted to and fro,

Looking saucily.

I would rather have the deer

Gasping meaningly, Than all Erin's songs to hear

Sung melodiously ; For above the finest bass

Hath the stag's sweet voice a grace, As he bellows on the face

Of Ben Doran.

Loud and long he gives a roar

From his very inmost core, Which is heard behind, before,

Far and fallingly; But the hind of softer notes,

With her calf that near her trots, Match each other's tuneful throats,

Crying longingly.

Her eye's soft and tender ray

With no flaw in it, O'er whose lid the brow is grey,

Guides her wandering feet : Very well she walks, and bold,

Lively o'er the russet wold, Tripping from her desert hold

Most undauntingly.

DUNCAN BAN MACINTYRE.

Faultless is her pace,

And her leap is full of grace — Ha ! the last when'm the race

Never saw I her : When she takes'yon startled stride,

Nor once turns her head aside, Aught to match her hasty pride

Is not known to me.

But now she 's on the heath,

As she ought to be, Where the tender grass she seeth,

Growing dawtily : The dry bent, the moor grass bare,

With the^ sappy herbs are there, That make fat, and full, and fair,

Her plump quarters all.

And those little wells are nigh,

Where the water-cresses lie, Above wine she loves to try

Their waves' solacing; Of the rye-grass, twisted rows,

On the rude hill side it grows, Than of rarest festal shows

Is she fonder far.

The choice increase of the earth

Forms her joyous treat; The primrose, St. John's wort,

Tops of go wans sweet, The new buds of the groves,

The soft heath o'er which she'roves, Are the titbits that she loves,

With good cause too.

For speckled, spotted, rare, Tall, and fine, and fair,

5G MODERN GAELIC BARBS.

From such food before her there

She grows sonsily ; And it is still the surest mean

To cure the weak ones and the lean, Who for any time have been

Wasted, wan, and low. Soon it would clothe their back

With the garb which most they lack — That rich fat, which they can pack

Most commodiously.

She 's a flighty young hind

When leaves ward her, Near her haunts where they bind

The brae border : Lightsome and urbane

Is her gay heart, free of stain, Tho' rash head and somewhat vain —

Somewhat thoughtless.

Yet her form, so full of grace,

She keeps hiding in a place, Where the green glen shows no trace

Of a falling off; But she 's so healthy and so clean —

So chaste where'er she 's seen — Should you kiss her lips, I ween

'T would not cause you shame.

Greatly prized is she, I know,

By the stag with crested brow, Whose thundering hoofs around him throw

Such a saucy sound : When with him she meets the view

Red and yellow is her hue, And of virtues not a few

That belong to her.

DUNCAN

[NTYRE.

Of cold she is free of fear, And in speed without a peer,

And the primest ear to hear In all Europe 's hers.

Oh : how sweetly they embrace,

Young and fawning, When they gather to their place

In the gloaming ;• There, till silent night is by,

Never terror comes them nigh, While beneath the bush they lie —

Their known haunt of old.

Let the wild herd seek their bed,

Let them slumber, free of dread, Where yon mighty moor is spread,

Broad and brawly; Where, with joy, I 've often spied

The sun colour their red hide, As they wandered in their pride

O'er Ben Dorain.

INTRODUCTION TO "COIRE CHEATHAICH."

EQUALLY celebrated with Ben Dorain, and an equally good speci- men of Duncan Ban's poetic powers, is the poem of Coire Cheathaich, which now follows. These two poems divide the voices of Gaelic readers as to which of them is the ablest and most finished.

Coire Cheathaich, however, being divided into stanzas, almost every one of which contains a complete picture of its own, has the advantage of being better known perhaps in some of its parts than

58 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

Ben Doram, where the description is more extended. The verse that speaks of the salmon leaping over the whirling eddies, is the most famous thing of its kind in the Gaelic language.

There can hardly be any Highlander, with the slightest turn for poetry, who has not repeated it approvingly himself, or been called on by others sometime to admire it. In about equal esteem, however, are those verses on the early morning and the singing of the birds ; and they are even more musical with their fine metrical succession of soft vowel sounds. But the flowers, trees, streams, and living creatures, throughout this excellent poem, are all nearly equally good.

To point out every thing in it that is highly thought of, would be in fact only to go over the whole of it. Coire Cheathaich is considered as fine a specimen of the harmony of which the Gaelic language is capable, as any other production of the Celtic muse. This translation is in the rhythm of the original, and verse for verse with it.

GORKI CEATHACH.*

MY misty Corri ! where hinds are roving ;

My lovely Corri ! iny charming dell! So grand, so grassy, so richly scented,

And gemm'd with wild flowers of sweetest smell. Thy knolls and hillocks, in dark green clothing,

Rise o'er the gay sward writh gentle swell; Where waves the cannach and grows the darnel,

And troop the wild deer I love so well.

* C is always hard, and th frequently silent in Gaelic. Ceathach is therefore pronounced almost as if it were spelt, " Kayach." The name Mackeoch, comes from it, and means, " Son of the Mist."

DUNCAN BAN MACINTYKE.

A strong, well-woven and double mantle —

A lasting garment and good for wear, All rough with rich grass, whose verdant ringlets

In each small dew-drop a burden bear — Is round my Corri, my green-knolled Corri,

Where reeds and rushes so thickly grow; They 'd yield a harvest, were reapers able

Among their quagmires and bogs to go.

'Tis a gay clothing, shows off the long plain,

With pastoral smooth grass from side to side ; A painted garment, by rains well nurtured,

As fair as can be by man descried. On this side Paris I do not fancy

A brighter raiment hath e'er been seen; Oh may it fade not ! and then what fortune

To haunt, at all hours, its varied green.

About Ruadh-Aisridh long locks are hanging —

Close, crisp, and clustering, and crested high ; In every moist spot their tops are waving,

As this or that way the breeze goes by : There the straight rye-grass, the twisted hemlock,

The sappy moor-grass that ne'er gets dry, And the strong bent grow, and close set groundsel,

Beside the dark wood where heroes lie.

The mountain ruin, where lived MacBhaidi,

Is now a desert that howls alone; Yet near its white stones is often nurtured

The brown ox, shapely and fully grown ; The cows with calves there that wander houseless,

Grand-group'd on hill-tops are often seen; Their calves so peaceful, in light and darkness,

Frequent in numbers the smooth Clach-Fiorm.

The garlic chooses the nooks and bondings Of steps that climb up the mountain-head ;

60 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

While the kind sim -slopes are spotted rarely With countless berries — round, ripe, or red:

The dandelion and penny-royal, And cannach smooth-white, there wave or rest,

As from its broad base, they deck thy mountain, Unto its lofty and haughty crest.

The tallest crag there is richly coated

With softest mosses above — below ; Unsullied, stainless, whene'er they 're needed,

O'er things unsightly these sweetly grow : While in the hollows, beneath the sharp peaks,

Where shaggy verdure is thickliest spread, Beside the primrose, right often peeping,

The feeble daisy lifts up its head.

A frowning eye-brow of verdant cresses,

Round all the fountains and wells is seen ; And bunchy sorrel conceals the deep roots

Of those great rough stones the spring that screen : With plunge and gurgle, and dancing motion,

In heatless boiling these quit the ground; And each dear streamlet leaps, laughs, and lingers,

And runs and loiters in circles round.

The salmon leaving the wild-waved ocean, Within the rough dell his white breast shows ;

There darts rejoicing, and snaps* the small flies, — So truly steers he his crooked nose :

* Kep, is the word used here in the original. It is a Gaelic word, but adopted by the Scotch, and used by Burns : as for instance in the "Lament for Captain Matthew Henderson,"

"Ilk cowslip cup shall kep a tear."

The word means primarily, to prevent something from going farther. Then, to stop anything which is thrown or coming towards you by making a snatch at it, is to kep it. It is probably the root of the English word,

DUNCAN BAN MACINTYRE.

On fierce whirled eddies his pompous leaping Displays his splendid and blue-grey mail,

His silver spangles, his fins, his speckles, His outstretched, wing-like, transparent tail.

The Corri Ceathach is sweet and joyous,

A royal site for the hunter's pride ; There the dark lead-shot his blazing powder

Sows thickly over the deer's dun side ; And there his needy and light-foot gazehound—

With bloody fierceness, without a fear — Runs madly, leaping with hardy spirit,

Pursuing boldly his red career.

Within thy lone brakes there never fail'd yet

The fawn, the red stag, the hornless doe ; So 'twas our glory in sunny morning

Through deer-trod dingles a-hunting go : Nor would the wild heath e'er leave us lying

Before the rain-storm, exposed and bare. No ! In the forest were low-browed grottoes,

With well-fenced couches to stretch us there.

Then when the morning's white calm would wake us,

Beneath the steep cliff 't would charm my ear To list the moor-hen grown hoarse with croaking,

Or courtly red- cock bend murmuring near; The lively wren too his own small trump play'd,

And flung his steam off so brisk and boon ; The starling bustled beside the red-breast,

Who lilted gaily a warbling tune.

All the hill- songsters, in flocking numbers

From leafy branches, there poured their praise ;

First came the gay lark, that noted lyrist, And shrilly chanted its cheeriest lays ;

The merle and cuckoo, on tall thin tree- tops, Gave out their music with might and main,

62 MODERN GAELIC BARDS,

When up this sound rose so light and lovely, The glen was breathing a choral strain.

Then every corri within the mountain

Sent forth the live things within its bound ; First, treading proudly, the antler'd red deer

Stepp'd, snorting loudly and looking round ; Throughout the wild fen he dash'd in rapture,

Or near the brown hind more gently play'd — His charming princess, so strong, so stately,

So spare, so active, so fine, so staid !

In shy recesses the yellow doe crept

Beneath the light twigs, and cropp'd them bare ; While o'er his proud couch the lordly buck stood,

And poked and stamp' d it with gloomy stare : The little kidling of speckled, smooth side,

Of placid nostril and noble head, Found sleeping snugly in some lone hollow,

Among the rushes, a cosy bed.

How many a light foot, when autumn ripen' d,

Tripp'd gaily over that hill's brown side, And sought and shared all the store it offered

With manly kindness and gentle pride ! In a soft round nest they got the honey

Of the small spotted and brindled bee, That labours, flying from flower to flower,

With lonely murmur and peaceful glee.

There nuts well season' d — no scanty harvest

Of wither'd kernels — were growing seen In great abundance ; thin skinn'd, smooth cluster' d,

They 'd suck'd the life-juice from branches green, Where purl'd the streamlet throughout the sweet strath,

And rowans ripen'd their berries red, And many a sapling, in graceful mantle,

Kept waving gently its new-clad head.

DUNCAN BAN MACINTYBE.

From far, surrounding the lonely desert,

Lay moor and grey glen where small knolls stood, With shaggy tufts and with warm soft shelter —

Choice spots for wild birds to rear their brood : Thence from soft couches in May's sweet morning

Rose up the dun doe and stag of ten ; While glanced the red light upon the tall sides

Of the rough Corri — the Misty Glen !

INTRODUCTION TO MAIRI BHAN OG.

>UNCAN BAN was still a young man when, according to his own account, at "the board of the change-house" he first saw Mairi Bhan 6g, the Bonny Jean of Gaelic poetry, whose name has been sung in some of the finest and tenderest, manliest and sincerest of Highland songs. Duncan Ban at the time of his meeting with her was somewhat poorer than she was. The father of Mairi Bhan had been a baron bailiff — a small freeholder, or sort of under- factor in the neighbourhood, and she, as the poet tells us, had some cows and calves of her own for her dowry. He, however, fell in love with her at once, and for three months suffered a death-pang ; for he was afraid she would despise him on account of his want of wealth. He attempts to excuse his poverty in the first song he addresses to her, saying that twelve things had kept him poor; and. of these he enumerates ten, viz., drink, the feast, and weddings, music, manners, purchases, gay meetings, wooers' gifts, and thoughtlessness and youth. But Mairi Bhan had too kind a heart, too fine a nature, and too delicate a perception to think little of her admirer because he was not rich. The poet got no reason to despair, and he soon recovered, under her gentle treat- ment, from his three months' pain.

Duncan Ban represents his young heroine as somewhat tall and round, and graceful; with a profusion of curly fair hair, a pure complexion, white teeth, fine eyebrows that knew not a frown,

04 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

and a mouth from which, of all others, the mountain lays had the sweetest sound. She had a good temper, a lively disposition, a light foot, and a happy heart. So gay was she, she made her love's heart dance with rapture when she was playful, So win- ning a way was hers, she could, when she pleased, draw from him his dearest secrets; "There was not a thing worth the telling but she could soon wile me to say." She was gentle, humane, alms- giving, liberal— she was like the surpassing bough in the forest that is covered with blossoms — like the fresh sea-trout just landed from the river, and yet lying on the green bank, splendid, and dazzling, and white. She was the star of the morning, whose beauty delighted every bosom. But that which delighted him most was that firmness in good which was hers. Yet was she very accomplished and very useful — the best of dancers to the pipe or fiddle, the cheeriest of companions, the most attractive of speakers. On summer evenings she could milk the cows at the fold by the bend of the river, wrhile the calves around her played ; or in winter, with her well-formed and lady-like hand, sew her bands, and her plain seams — yes, and the rarest embroidery, in the lighted room that shone like day. This is the portrait, drawn by a loving hand of the most famous of Highland humble maidens. Duncan Ban thought he had secured an inestimable prize, far more than he deserved, when he got for his own this peerless milker of the cows, this "prettiest low-born lass" that trode the Argyllshire heather.

Mairi Bhan is the heroine of three of Duncan Ban's published Songs. One of these, "A Song to his Spouse newly wedded," here given, is considered, on account of its united purity and passion, its grace, delicacy and good feeling, to be the finest love song in the Gaelic language. Not but there is at least another, namely, "Macdonald's Address to Morag," which is held to be quite as good, taken merely as an intellectual display, or a vehicle of passion of a certain kind. The stanzas in the present poem, beginning, "I went to the wood," &c., and, "I cast out my net," &c., have been very generally admired; but not less commendable is the concluding verse, "I'd plough or drive in

DUNCAN BAN MACINTYRE.

G5

spring-time for thee," &c. The verses that follow from, "Thy manners were womanly ever/' give a very fine picture of truly amiable feminine characteristics. It is very pleasant to hear the poet tell his young wife, —

On the good thou hast done, I 'm persuaded Thy spirit for ever shall feed.

And also, notwithstanding all her beauty, with which she delights every bosom, —

What makes me rate thee the highest, Is that firmness in good which is thine.

Take notice, too, how respectful he is with the amiable young milkmaid, —

When I took her apart for a moment,

To speak of my love and my pride, My ear caught the fluttering tumult

Of my heart beating fast on my side.

Then there is something very manly and sensible, surely, as well as affectionate, in his assuring Mairi Bhan, —

Ne'er shall the hearth's harsh wrangling tease thee, Nor make thy clear temper its prey.

While the deep feeling and delicate pathos of this truly tender exclamation cannot be overlooked, —

Oh ! could I but take thee and hide thee In a place well secured from decay.

This is indeed a poem which is altogether very creditable to its author, and pleasant to comment upon, in evidence of the goodness of both his head and his heart, i

CG MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

A SONG TO HIS SPOUSE, NEWLY WEBBER

MAIRI BHAN OG,* thou girl ever thought of,

Still where I am may thou be, Since the clerk-given right, so long wish'd for,

I've got, dear wife ! o'er thee. With cov'nants and bands, strong and lasting,

A knot now ties thee to me ; That thou art mine, with thy friends all consenting,

Fills me with health and with glee.

When sick in our courtship's beginning,

To me none in kindness came near; rT was then, at the board of the ale-house,

I marked the sweet girl now so dear : I drew to her side, and she promised

My life with her love to cheer; Oh! the joy when I won her, and with her,

A part of the old baron's gear.

Monday morning — long though the journey

I travelled to meet with my bride ; I ran like the wind to be bound in

The knot that will ne'er be untied : I took her apart for a moment,

To speak of my love and pride ; And my ear caught the fluttering tumult

Of my heart beating fast on my side.

For Cupid had shot a whole bundle

Of sharp-winged darts in my breast, That dried up my pulses, and downward

My strength like a burden press' d :

0 "MairiEhan Og" means, "Fair Young Mary. The ai in Maid is pronounced like the a in father.

DUNCAN BAN MACINTYBE. <>7

Then I told the sweet cause of my anguish,

How no leech could give me rest; But my wounds, with her virtues, she cured them,

As myself she gently caress' d.

Then kiss'd I the round and soft maiden.

Who 'd grown up so mild and sweet — So comely, so tall, and so curly,

So womanly, graceful, and neat : In many a way am I favour'd,

Such a love as hers to meet; When her vows and herself she gives me,

A cheaply bought bargain I greet

I went to the wood with its saplings,

And glorious it looked all around; But my eye caught a spray, all surpassing,

High in the dusky shade found: It was quite covered over with blossoms —

I bent it down to the ground, And cut it — a sad sight for many ;

But my fate with it was bound.

I cast out my net in the true waters,* And strained hard to draw it to land,

* Water that flows from a spring is called, ''true water" in Gaelic. It shows the originality of Duncan Ban's mind thus to have drawn his similies from his own occupations, chosen them so well, and used them so happily. A sea-trout, just fresh from the ocean, is always pure arid bright looking. Any person who has had the good fortune to see one caught at the mouth of the sea, as the darkness came on, will no doubt remember how it flashed with a silvery lustre among the other fishes, almost indeed "like the star of the morning." I once saw one caught accidentally in this way, by some working people who were, with their nets, dragging a little port near a river for sathe. Whenever the net touched the shore, the stranger that was entangled in it, leaping and glit- tering so lively and bright, attracted every eye, and when landed it really did lie " like a swan on the strand." Something of this sort must have

68 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

And, lo ! I had caught a bright sea-trout, That lay like a swan on the strand :

Pleased was my soul with the fortune That came with such joy to my hand.

My spouse! thou 'rt the star of the morning! Blest be thy slumbers and bland !

Thy manners were womanly ever,

Gentle in word and in deed ; So genial, so kind, and so glowing —

Free of grudging, and closeness, and greed : Almsgiving, liberal, pitying,

Humane with all that had need ; On the good thou hast done, I 'm persuaded,

Thy spirit for ever shall feed.

When I studied to form thy acquaintance,

With words that were courteous and gay, Thy breath smelt as sweet as the apples,

Golden and ripe on the spray : There was not a thing worth the telling

That thou couldst not wile me to say; And shouldst thou now leave me, the linen

And grave would hide me away.

Thy talk and thy singing are pleasant, Thy nature is* charming always —

Mirthful, noble, and free from A shade of reproach or disgrace.

been in Duncan Ban's mind. He had cast his net into the waters, and instead of landing an ordinary fish like the others, lo ! his was a bright sea-trout, that lay like a swan among the rest. So also with the preced- ing verse, he had not merely got a green bough like others, but one that was " quite covered over with blossoms," beautiful and blooming with sweet hopes. The imagery is particularly fresh and charming in both verses.

DUNCAN BAN MACINTYHK

For three months I suffered a death-pang ;

But once thou hadst heard of my case, A treasure of solace thou gav'st me,

Of sorrow it left not a trace.

Since last year I've risen in value,

With the calves thou broughtest and kine ; Now a choice sheaf of wheat, ripe and rustling,

With the best of corn is mine : But what makes me rate thee the highest,

Is that firmness in good which is thine ; Yet thy beauties delight every bosom,

So sweetly and softly they shine.

Thy fair hair, close set and excelling,

Rolls in curls and wavelets free; Thy features are mild, modest, womanly,

Fine eyebrows, where frowns never be. A winning blue eye, full, smooth-lidded ;

No fault in thy face I see; Thy teeth are strong, white as ivory;

Thy still mouth speaks modestly.

Thy breast 's like the fresh and smooth pebble

That lies on the shore day and night; Thy body so slender and stately,

Like cannach is pure and white. Soft and thin is thy palm, fine thy fingers,

The lady's warm hand, shoulders bright; Thy foot in its shoe is close-fitting;

Graceful thy step is and light.

The lone shieling glen canst thou traverse, Where the wandering cattle stray;

At the bend of the river to milk them, While the calves around thee play :

70 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

Nor less is thy worth near the candle,

In the room that shines like day ; Sewing thy bands and plain seams,

Or working embroidery gay.

Mild art thou, wife, come from Mam-Charai,

Thy love steals my senses away ; For a heart such as thine is, Oh ! surely

Small was the price I 'd to pay ! The blood of great nobles and famous

Rolls in thy blue pulses' play — The blood of the King and Mac-Cailean,

And him who in Sleat held the sway.

Oh! could I but take thee and hide thee

In a place well secured from decay ; For now, should death leave me without thee,

I'd love not another for aye : But ne'er shall the hearth's harsh wrangling tease thee,

Nor make thy clear temper its prey ; Thou shalt hear but the choice of sweet measures

My mouth can or sing or say.

I 'd plough or drive in the spring-time for thee,

When the young horse in harness is dress'd, Or seek on the shore with the fishers

Whate'er to the hook wileth best; I'd kill for thee swans, seals, and wild geese,

And birds on the bough that rest; Nor e'er shalt thou want while a forest

Lies near with one an tier' d crest.

On occasion of some visit to Edinburgh, Duncan Ban composed a song in praise of Dunedin, in which he chronicles minutely everything he thought worth noticing in the city ; but, as will be seen, he regards all the novelties he speaks of with that clear intelligence and steadfast heart, neither attracted nor repelled by

DUNCAN BAN MACINTYRE.

the mere strangeness of the scenes and habits he refers to, which indicate of themselves no small amount of talent. The song on Edinburgh is as follows : —

THE PRAISE OF DUNEDIN.

'T is a great town Dunedin,

It charmed me to be there ; A broad and hospitable place,

And pleasant everywhere : With a garrison — a battery —

A rampart tight and good — A Castle — and great houses

Where camps right often stood.

A royal camp stood often here ;

And beautiful 't would be, With troops of horsemen plentiful,

To guard it faithfully ; And every one so disciplined

In every art of war — Before you got a rank like theirs

You might search near and far.

Here 's many a gallant gentleman

Who is polished and well-bred, Wears powder plaster' d on his hair

To the crown of his head ; With folds and plaits, and many curls,

Well- woven, overspread ; And, on the top, a bunch like silk

When the card has smooth'd its thread!

There 's many a noble lady A poor man here may meet,

72 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

In gown of silk and satin That sweeps along the street ;

And every pretty thing wears stays, To keep her straight and spare ;

And beauty-spots on her fair face, To make her still more rare.

Each one, as well becomes her,

Polite among the rest ; And proud, and rich,, and ribbony,

And round and gaily dress' d : The clothes on the young maidens

Just showing to your eye A strong and pointed well-made shoe—

I thought its heel too high.

When I went to the Abbey

It was a noble sight To see the kings in order,

From King Fergus, as was right ; But now, since they are gone from us,

Our Alba wants the Crown — No wonder, then, her once gay Court

Is like a desert grown.

There is a lantern made of glass,

With a candle in each place, That yields a light to every eye

Around a little space. Nor less a cause of pleasure

Are the instruments they play, That give a sweeter music

Than the cuckoo does in May.

A stately sound the coaches make, With their trotting and their whirr ;

The hard-hoof d, smooth-pac'd horses They always keep a stir :

DUNCAN BAN MACINTYRE.

They frisk and raise their heads on high,

In their spirited career; Not such our heather pastures,

Nor the wild moorlands rear.

In the Close of the Parliament,

There the same horse is shown, Still standing where he used to stand,

On the bare way of stone ; They 've bridled him and saddled him,

And set the King* thereon, Whose was the right of all these realms,

Though they banish' d fa^ his son.

The great House of the Parliament

Is worthy a good view ; There reasonable gentlemen

Deliver judgments true : They have a power given them,

Will last them many a day — To hang the faulty up on high,

And let the good away.

And here a Healing-house I see,

Where the best leeches go ; And cure each kind of suffering

That limb and body know : The man who is in want of health,

Whom leeches long attend, Here is the place for him to come,

And keep him from his end.

Dunedin is a bonny place In far more ways than one —

73

* The Statue of King Charles the Second, in the Parliament Square, is here referred to, although Duncan Ban speaks of it as if it were that of King James the Second. K

MODERK GAELIC BARDS.

A town that must not yield to it In this whole realm is none.

So many gentlemen are there, Of tribute raising line —

Men who may daily quench their thirst With the good Spanish wine.

Though great and long the distance

From Glasgow unto Perth, Yet am I sure, although I saw

Each mansion there of worth, I could see none more charming

Than the Abbey or the Bank ; Or houses rich and large, whose guests

Might be of kingly rank.

FROM THE "SONG OF GLENORCHY,"

THE Bard's birth-place, and where there is now an appropriate monument erected to his memory. Contributions to the fund for raising this well deserved monument, came from all parts of the world.

CiACHAN-an-Diseirt,*

How pleasant to be there, Sitting in its wondrous church,

Its pew so richly fair ; And listening to his mellow voice,

Whose counsels none should spurn,

0 The derivation of this name is interesting. " Clachan " means, in the first place, a village where there is a place of worship. Clachan-an-diseirt is resolved then into " Clachan an He 's airde," i.e. The worshipping place of the Highest God. This name, like Dundee, had its origin pro- bably in early pagan times.

DUNCAN BAN MACINTYKE. 75

The Bible tale rehearsing, That yields the great return.

That Glen is dry and balmy,

All good things there are grown; In little level Inches,*

Where the seed-corn is sown ; And where the ripening crop gets white,

As curds upon the whey, Productive, sappy, wholesome,

In regular array.

In winter was it cheerful,

Such sports its weddings gave, When all, without a heavy thought,

Heard the smooth pibrochs rave ; While fiddlers on the lively strings,

The dance-tunes played so well; And damsels lent their voices,

The cheerful sound to swelL

The spring-water salmon there

Winds all the streamlets through; Hill-birds are there in numbers,

And thousand black-cocks too. The small doe paws beside her kid,

And strong bucks not a few, In that Glen's wild forest scenes,

The gallant youths pursue.

Then when we all drew homeward

It was our pleasant way, To gather to the tavern

For dance and song and play.

* Inches — in Gaelic, Innis — sometimes an Island — sometimes choice pasture land, such especially as the green round flats on the banks of a river.

76 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

Cordial one to another, The hides for pay were near ;

So when they cried "Another stoup," No hunter felt a fear.

Duncan Ban was the author of several convivial songs, which are very popular. The one which follows is certainly not the longest or the most elaborate of these, but it contains at least some relics of old manners which may make it interesting. Whatever opinion may be entertained of the dram in the morning there can be no doubt that there is a most estimable cordiality — a cheerful look of dear and genuine, though old-fashioned kindness, about the hospitable lady in the second verse of this song, who leaves her room in the early morning, and meets her guests with the big bottle in her hand, filled to the brim with Usquebay,

"And as we drink to one another, 'You are welcome,' doth she say."

A RHYME TO THIRST.

WOEFUL after health is sorrow ;

Thirst is after drink as sore ; Sad to sit the board surrounding

When the stoup is filled no more. I like to see our cordial gentry,

With their store of wealth alway ; Who can drink whene'er they 're thirsty,

And off-hand the women pay.

A dram is pleasant in the morning, When it comes at peep of day ;

As the lady leaves her chamber, To spread pleasure on her way.

DUNCAN BAN MACINTYBE.

The big bottle in her hand, Full to the brim of Usquebay,

And as we drink to one another, "You are welcome," doth she say.

'T is the right fashion in the tavern,

With great might it fills the breast; He who does like the brandy,

Abuses us because we taste. But the boon companion says thus,

"Fill again the cup I pray — Much the jovial drink upbraids me,

But my thirst will not away."

INTRODUCTION TO "LAST FAREWELL TO THE HILLS."

DUNCAN BAN visited the Highlands after an absence of many years, and spent a whole autumn day in wandering, with melan- choly pleasure, over Ben Dorain, whose beauties and delights he had, years before, sung and celebrated so joyously in his longest poem. It was one of the favourite haunts of his youth, and vigorous manhood. Near it he was born ; on it he had a thousand times hunted the deer, feeding his thoughts meanwhile with music taken from the bards of other days, or drawn from the sweet, unpretending fountain of his own inspiration. Then his heart was full of life, his mind and body overflowing with energy. Then the fresh breath of young vitality played about his nostrils like a mellow breeze of summer, singing down the rude, rough gorge, and waving the green heather, and then the wild hill and its environs were oft-times trod by gallant, friendly youths, and sometimes cheered by the sweet lilt of kind, warm-hearted women. But now the whole was changed. The poet himself was getting old. He could run, and leap, and press the heady chase no more. The

78 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

mirthful shieling had vanished, and the song of the women was terribly and solemnly silent. The friends of his youth, with whom he had trod the wide stretching moor so often — where were those friends he loved? Alas! even the hill itself was changed. Its proud sights were gone — its grandly sweeping troops of wild deer, its graceful does, its innocent and lovely fawns. Its sweetest music, the brave crowing of its red-cock and its black-cock was nowhere to be heard. The very heather had disappeared, and sheep, sheep everywhere, were all that could be seen. "Oh! dear," said the poet, "when I looked round and perceived this I could not feel gay. Since the hill itself has changed, surely the world has deceived me." Such is the spirit of the song composed by Duncan Ban on occasion of his last visit to Ben Dorain, as he looked in the multitude of his tender thoughts on the well-known scenes whose every step was alive to him with the stirring senti- ment— the moving memory of other years. "Sweet, though mournful to the soul, is the memory of tlie years that are past;" and Duncan Ban, touched by that sacred sorrow, so often the inspiration of his most celebrated poetic countryman, and breath- ing this most natural of human plaints, "Ah! for the change 'twixt now and then!" embodied the elevating emotion that filled him, in melodious verse. This song of his is interesting, not merely on account of its delicate, intellectual pensiveness, its true love and devotion, and its pure sentiments; net merely on account of the originally humble condition of its author, whose total want of education did not prevent his feelings and reflections from being attractive, nor his expression of them from being eloquent and delicate. It is interesting even on account of the great age of the fine old man at the date of its composition, 1 9th September, 1802. Duncan Ban was then seventy-eight years old. Not many poets have lived to that age, very few of them have used their strength, and fed their lamp so well, as to compose some of their best poetry so late in life. There is a sadness even in the title of this ballad of fading years, " The last farewell to the hills," The poet had made up his mind to look on the deer scene no more. Why, or by whom this day is so carefully noted,' does

DUNCAN BAN MACINTYRE.

lot appear; but this is the only one of Duncan Ban's compositions which is so accurately dated.

THE LAST FAREWELL TO THE HILLS,

BEN DORAIN I saw yesterday,

And trod its gorges grey, Amid its well-known dells and glens,

No stranger did I stray ; And think how joyful 't was of yore,

To seek that mountain high, As the sun shone o'er the morning hoar,

And the deer were belling by.

How charming was their lordly herd,

When loud they rushed away, While fawn and doe they scarcely stirred,

Where by the fount they lay ; Then did the roe-buck bellow round,

The black-cock, red-cock crow, I think, than these, no sweeter sound

Can morning ever know.

How cheerfully I rose and went

The rugged brakes to roam, I sought them early, but unspent,

Though late I wandered home ; For the breath of those great mountains,

Was health and strength to me, And a fresh draught from the fountains,

Like a new life would be.

And once I stayed a little while, In a gay shieling near,

80 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

With sport, and mirth, and laugh, and smile, And woman's kindness dear :

Alas, 't was not in nature's power, That such blythe joy should last, —

Too swiftly came the parting hour, — I sighed and onward pass'd.

And now old age has struck me sore,

With its long lingering blight, My teeth are fresh and sound no more ;

Ah ! me, my fading sight. I could not now give eager heed,

If the chase should cheer the day ; Whatever now should be my need

I could not haste away.

Yet though my hair be hoary white,

And my beard thinner grown, Than when upon -the proud stag's flight

My greyhounds fast have flown, I ween the chase still charms my heart,

Though if it swept yon heath, I could not do my wonted part,

With this remnant of my breath.

Ill could I drive its headlong pride

As once I used to do, By glen, and dell, and mountain side,

Hough stream, and mosses through. Ill could I join a social throng,

And share their autumn cheer, 111 could I sing a pleasant song

At the falling of the year.

My days were in their spring-time then,

And follies kept me poor; Though nought, save luck, renews to men

Their good, or keeps secure.

DUNCAN BAN MACINTYRK. 81

In that belief content I live,

Though far from rich I be, For George's daughter* still will give,

I hope, my bread to me.

And yesterday I trod yon moor —

How many a thought it moved! The friends I walked with there of yore —

Where were those friends I loved! I looked and looked, and sheep, sheep still

Were all that I could see : A change had struck the very hill —

0 world ! deceiving me.

As I turned round from side to side,

Oh dear ! I felt not gay ; The heather's bloom, the greenwood's pride,

The old men were away : There was not left one antlered stag,

There was not left a roe ; No bird to fill the hunter's bag —

Such old things — all must go.

Then wild heath forest, fare-you-well,

Ye wonderful bright hills ; Farewell sweet spring and grassy dell —

Farewell the running rills, — Farewell vast deserts, mountains grand,

With peaks the clouds that sever ; Scenes of past pleasures pure and bland —

Farewell, farewell for ever !

* "George's daughter" was the musket which he carried in King George's name, as a member of the city-guard. The gun which he used among the hills he called, "Nic Goiseam," or "Coiseam's daughter." Ho composed a characteristic song to both these weapons.

82

DUGALD BUCHANAN.

DUGALD BUCHANAN, a man of a somewhat remarkable character, one of the earliest, and still the most esteemed of the Gaelic writers of Sacred Poetry, was born in Strathtyre, in the parish of Balquhidder, Perthshire, in the year 1716. We are told by himself that both his parents were religious, but especially his mother, who taught him to pray as soon as he could speak; and strove earnestly to engraft on his young mind those strict principles of doctrinal piety by which her own life was actuated. But she died when he was only six years of age, and for twenty years after he underwent a severe moral discipline, in vain attempts to get rid of religious convictions altogether, or in equally useless endeavours to reconcile his heart to the stern form in which the Christian faith seems to have been presented to him. Of this momentous period of his life he has left a long and elaborate account, written in English, in a good style — sometimes with con- siderable force, and displaying occasional marks of his imaginative talent. From it we learn that when still quite young he learnt to curse and swear, that he became very loose and immoral in his habits, and associated much with bad. company; that on these accounts he suffered frequently and severely from the reproaches of conscience, and a remorseful sense of guilt, until finally, and by slow degrees, he attained unto the repose of steadfast principle and devout faith. The book closes with a dedication 'of himself to God, which the author solemnly signs. Its concluding words are as follows : — " Now, Lord, let the dedication of myself to thee, and my accepting of thee as my God in Christ, and my being the subject of thy spiritual work, be not like the day that is past and cannot be recalled again, — let it be ratified in heaven and I will

sign it upon earth.

DUGALD BUCHANAN."

DUGALD BUCHANAN. *."•

Buchanan's parents, who were in pretty easy circumstances, appear to have given their children as fair an amount of education as the Highlands could afford in their day : Dugald, particularly, was so well grounded that at the age of twelve years he was con- sidered qualified to look after the education of a young family who lived at some distance from his father's farm of Ardoch. In his Memoir he adverts to this circumstance as follows: — "When about twelve years of age I was called to a family for the purpose of teaching the children to read ; for at that time I was sufficiently qualified to read the Bible. This family, into which I came, was singular for every species of wickedness; each one of its members exceeding the other in cursing, swearing, and other vices, with exception of the mistress who, I believe, feared the Lord. She was like Lot in Sodom." "1 was scarcely a month in this family when I learnt to speak the language of Ashdod; yea, in a short time I exceeded every one of themselves — so much so that I could not speak without uttering oaths and imprecations, and my conscience being lulled asleep, I sinned without restraint, except occasion- ally when I would think of death."

After leaving this situation, Buchanan attended school at his native village for two years, and was then removed to Stirling for other two years, and afterwards sent to Edinburgh for six months, that he might enjoy the benefit of the superior means of education these places possessed. His father, at this time, is said to have intended him for a profession, but changed his mind in conse- quence of his son's loose and reckless habits, and unsettled principles. He urged on him therefore to make choice of some trade, which Buchanan at last did — binding himself apprentice for three years to a relative of his own, — a house-carpenter at Kippen. He quarrelled with his master, however, before his term was out, and leaving him, went to Dumbarton, where he engaged with some other person in the same trade. He does not seem to have remained very long here either, for in his twenty- sixth year we find him settled in his native village of Ardoch, in possession of a mill which formerly belonged to his father, and following the occupation of a miller. In this situation he does not appear to

84 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

have been very successful, as he is next found, not many years after, in charge of a small school in a remote village in Perth- shire. Out of this obscurity, however, he began to be generally known and respected, as the author of some excellent religious poetry, and as a man of exemplary character, and interest was made for him with " The Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge in Scotland," who at once appointed him as one of their teachers.

In 1755 he was made Schoolmaster and Catechist at Kinloch Rannoch, and he laboured there faithfully until his death, thirteen years after. Kinloch Rannoch formed part of an immense parish in those days. The minister, or his assistant, was only able to visit it once in the three weeks, so the Sundays, according to Buchanan's biographer, were spent " in vain and sinful amuse- ments." As he could not by any means induce them to come to join with him in worship, he at last followed the people to their own gatherings, and reasoned with them there with such power and effect, that he gradually brought them to a more sober and devout frame of mind, and they attended readily on his ministrations. He preached with such fervour and eloquence, that by and bye crowds from all parts came to hear him, until his school-room was found much too small to hold the numbers that were attracted to his meetings. Then he used to adjourn with them to a rising ground on the banks of the river Tuinmel, where, in the open air, his hearers mingled their praises with the sound of the murmuring waters.

Soon his fame as a preacher became so great, and his useful- ness so evident, that a request was made to the Presbytery of Dunkeld, to give him a regular license as a preacher of the Church of Scotland; but there were technical difficulties in the way of meeting this wish, and so the matter dropt. Nor was the modest poet himself at all disconcerted at this issue to the well-meant kindness of his friends.

Buchanan was in Edinburgh in 1766, superintending the print- ing of the Gaelic New Testament. While in that city he took the opportunity offered him — of increasing his knowledge and culti-

JALD BUCHANAN.

vating his mind — by attending the classes for Natural Philosophy, Anatomy, and Astronomy, at the University.

In 1768 he died of fever, in the fifty-second year of his age. In May of that year he returned home from a long journey, to find his family suffering from this disorder, which soon seized upon himself. All his children, his two servants, and himself, were ill at the same time. His wife then about to be confined, could get no one to assist her in attending on them ; so great was the dread of infection entertained by their neighbours. In his delirium Buchanan frequently sang psalms, and spoke of the Lamb in the midst of the throne. On the second of June he died.

In Reid's " Bibliotheca Scoto-Celtica," it is asserted, that the poet's whole family, six in number, were carried off by the same fever, and at the same time as their father. But this is a mistake. Buchanan left two sons and two daughters behind him — one of the latter was alive in 1836.

In person Buchanan was considerably above the middle size, and of a dark complexion. His face is said to have been very expressive of kindness and benevolence, especially on a near view. Among his familiar acquaintance he was cheerful and sociable ; his company being much sought after on account of his stock of pleasant anecdotes, and generally intelligent conversation. His usual dress was a blue bonnet and a black suit, over which he often wore a blue great-coat. He was so highly respected that great numbers gathered to attend his funeral, many of them from a far distance. The people of Kinloch Rannoch, fondly attached to him, wished to have him buried among themselves, but that his kindred — equally attached to his memory — would not permit; and so they carried his remains to his native place. A plain stone, with a neat inscription, marks the spot where his ashes rest, in the burial ground of the Buchanans, at Little Lenny, near Callander.

His "Spiritual Songs," of which there are only eight in all, were first collected and published in 1767. His "Memoir of himself" was first printed in 1853. How or where it was preserved so long does not appear; but its genuineness is not doubted. It has been translated into Gaelic, and is now, in its original shape, out of

MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

print. His poetry is extremely popular, and has gone through nearly twenty editions. No other book that has appeared in Gaelic has been so extensively circulated. This is undoubtedly due, in some measure, to its religious character ; it being a work which can be conscientiously and profitably read on the working man's Great Leisure Day. It is also partly owing to its being very widely distributed through means of the " Colporteurs" that travel over the Highlands. Something too may be allowed for its price, which is at present only threepence, and a good deal still left for its own merits, which are truly great.

Buchanan has been called the Cowper of the Highlands, but his poetry bears little resemblance to Cowper's. It is much more like Blair's, the author of " The Grave." Once or twice he is indebted to Dr. Watts for his subject, and partly too for his manner of dealing with it, as in the hymn entitled, " The Hero;" not that there is discernible here or anywhere else in his writings such a thing as servile imitation. But he is the only one of the High- land poets whose works display any trace of their author's English reading. He was, however, the one who, if not the most learned in some points, was at least the best informed, probably of them all.

There is a letter of Buchanan's extant, a somewhat remarkable production, published originally in a volume of " Consolatory Letters, addressed to bereaved Mourners," collected and edited by Dr. Erskine, one of the ministers of Edinburgh in the last century. In this letter we find Milton quoted, a work of Dr Watts referred to, and the following passage which contains, either a striking, undesigned coincidence with part of Constance's lamen- tation for Arthur in "King John," or manifests some sort of acquaintance with Shakespeare. The letter is addressed to friends of Buchanan's who had lately lost one of their children, and the poet writes thus : — " Our memories, treacherous enough on other occasions, here are over-faithful, and cruelly muster up in a long succession all the amiable qualities of our departed friends, and thus tear open our wounds to bleed afresh. Imagination is set to work, and stuffs up their empty garments in their former shape,

DUGALD BUCHAN.,

when we miss them at bed or table." In like manner, but in no better terms, Constance says, almost in the same words however,

" Grief stuffs out his vacant garments with his form."

Dugald Buchanan's "Spiritual Songs" exhibition the whole, great vigour of thought and expression, and bear the stamp of a solid understanding, and of an imagination capable of lofty excite- ment. Perhaps the best and most characteristic of his produc- tions is the poem of " The Skull," from which an extract is here given: —

THE SKULL.

THE grave was new-made, And a skull had been laid,

Close to its brink on the ground, I stooped where it lay, And my tears welled away

As I raised it, and turned it around.

No beauty was there, No knowledge, no care

Of the men that passed it by — Its jaws both were bare, And no tongue now could e'er

In its empty mouth sing melody.

Yet this cheek once was red, And thick locks clothed this head,

And this ear once could list to my song; And these nostrils could smell, That damp earth soon and well,

Now so weak where they all were so strong.

88 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

There no lustrous orb glows,

And no lids ope or close ; There 's no sight the known pathway to trace ;

But the gross worms instead

Have for long made their bed, And dug holes in the eyes' wonted place.

Aye, such looks will not show,

What thou wast long ago ; Whether King's skull or Duke's I now hold :

Alexander the Great

Thus owns no more state Than his slave on the dunghill cold.

Come thou grave-digger near, —

Come and tell in my ear Whose it is I have got in my hand;

Till I question the head

Of the life it once led, Though little 'twill heed my demand.

Wert thou once some young maid

In beauty arrayed, And virtuous and pure in thy ways, —

With thy charms fairly set,

To ensnare like a net, The hearts of the young with their grace ?

And now those bright charms,

That woke love's sweet alarms, Are thus loathsome to every one.

Out, out on the grave,

That spoiled thee so bare Of that beauty such triumphs that won.

DUGALD BUCHANAN.

Or wert thou the Leech,

Who thy patients could teach Every ache, every pain to allay —

Boasting elate,

Thy specific so great, That could snatch from death's hand his prey ?

Alas ! and that power

Was lost in the hour When relief thy own sickness did crave —

And then all thy skill,

In the bolus and pill, Could not keep thee a day from the grave.

89

Or in tavern rout,

Didst thou revel and shout, With the mirth which the dram-drinking bred?

And never a thought

Of God's providence sought, If the barm raised it not in thy head ?

No music was there,

But to curse and to swear, As you tried whose fist was the best ;

Till, as senseless and coarse

As a cow or a horse, You lay dizzy and spewed in your rest.

Or some great man and grand,

Do I hold in my hand — Lord of acres, fertile and wide,

Who kindness would show

To the mean man and low, And the poor from his plenty supplied ?

90 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

Or didst them, with hard mind,

Thy weak tenantry grind, And thin their worn hair 'neath thy sway —

With the law's cruel mock,

Distraining their stock, Though their poverty moaned for delay ?

Letting them stand,

With bonnet in hand, When they dared in thy presence appear :

And making so light

Of their locks thin and white, And the wind that blew aches in their ear.

Now the poor drudge,

Free of rent and of judge, Unrespecting lies down by thy side :

Great praise be to death,

Who so soon stopt thy breath, Nor 'neath the sod suffered thy pride.

Or once in this head,

Was godly faith fed- Didst thou walk in the way of the wise ?

Then, though thou liest there,

So naked and bare, Without nose or tongue or eyes,

Be bold, — do not grieve,

For yet thou shalt leave At the sound of the trumpet blast,

This baseness behind,

With the earth-worm that 's blind, When the grave and its power is past.

L>UGALD BUCHANAN.

The opening stanzas of Buchanan's Spiritual Song, called "Winter/' are as follows. After giving a description of the season, the poet moralizes over it, and applies it according to his manner : —

The Summer now leaves us,

And near Winter grieves us — Vegetation's true foe ;

For our havoc who 's braced, When for spoil thus he rises,

All grace he despises, Free of softness and pity,

Full of plunder and waste.

His dark wings overspreading,

And the solar rays shading, From their nest he calls forth

His chill ravaging brood ; Snow pure white, and flying,

Or iii drifts and heaps lying, And hailstones like shot,

And the north's stormy mood.

Once he breathes in his power,

Then its soul leaves the flower; His lips clip like scissors

The garden's pride bare; Woods and groves he assails them —

Of their gay garb unveils them, And the streamlets he chokes

While his dark flags they wear.

His breast's frozen whistle

Calls the wild winds to bristle — The barm-swollen ocean

That rolls roudi and hiiUi ;

MODERN GAELIC BARDS,

And he curdles the sleet-shower The hill-tops that flits o'er,

And clean scours the stars, Till they dazzle the eye.

FROM THE DAY OF JUDGMENT.

OH ! ye who did the world so prize, Come now and see its doleful case ;

When, like a man that struggling dies, It sinks in death's most fell embrace.

Its cold, clear veins that knew no rest, But coursed the glen with playful pride,

Now shrink within its burning breast, And boiling, thread the mountain side.

How the world quakes ! Lo ! the great stones And rocks that fall from off the hill ;

Oh ! hear those heavy, deadly groans That through its bursting bosom thrill.

There the blue curtain from the sun,

That, cloak-like, round the globe was spread,

In fierce fire shrivels up, undone, Like a thin leaf on embers red.

And dense clouds choke the air throughout, With dark smoke-heaps about it wound,

From which the flames, far-flashing, spout In curls that wreathe and twirl around.

And over all the earth there rise Dread and loud-sounding thunder peals,

DUGALD BUCHANAN.

Whose lightning, with the glorious skies, Like sparks with the dry heather deals.

But more — to swell the tumult yet —

From all their arts the strong winds stray,

Like angels for destruction met,

And haste this wasting work each way !

"The Day of Judgment," consisting of one hundred and twenty-seven verses, in the measure given above, is the longest of Buchanan's poems. From what an early period that theme occupied his mind will appear from the following extract from his "Memoirs:" — "Then the Lord began to visit me with terrible visions — dreams in the night — which greatly frightened me. I always dreamed that the day of judgment was come, that Christ appeared in the clouds to judge the world; that all the people were gathered together before his throne ; that he separated them into two companies, the one on his right hand, the other on his left ; and that I saw myself, along with others, sentenced to ever- lasting burnings. I always saw myself entering into the flames, and so would instantly awake in great fear and trembling." " These dreams continued for about two years, so frequent that scarcely a month passed by in which I had not some such dream, and subsequently became so very frequent that I did not regard them. At last, however, they ceased, and I was no more troubled with them. This was about the ninth year of my age."

It is told of Buchanan that when in Edinburgh, superintending the printing of the Gaelic translation of the New Testament, he became acquainted with several of the distinguished men of that city, — amongst others with David Hume, who asked the poet to his house. When Buchanan called he found the philosopher for a moment engaged, so he sat down, and while waiting for his host took up a book and began to read. The book was a volume of Shakespeare, and the place where Buchanan read was in "The Tempest." When Hume entered he asked his visitor what he had been reading ? no doubt feeling curious to know what choice of

94 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

book such a man would make, or what opinion he would form of an English classic. Buchanan told him, and pointed to those celebrated lines : —

" And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, — Yea, all which it inherit shall dissolve ; And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind."

Hume asked him if he thought he had ever read anything so sublime before? Buchanan declared he had, and while admiring these lines he professed there was a book in his house which contained a somewhat similar passage, but even more sublime, "and this is it," he said. We have been told that he was a man on whom anything great or touching made a visible impression, causing him often even to shed tears ; so, he no doubt, repeated very effectively those solemn verses: — "And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat upon it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away ; and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead small and great stand before God ; and the books were opened : and another book was opened, which is the book of life : And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it : and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them ; and they were judged every man according to their works." Hume said, "That is the Bible, sir. Yes, it is very sublime; but it never somehow struck me so forcibly before." Buchanan, in his "Memoir," tells us of his lying awake a whole night in great terror during a storm of thunder, lightning, and hail, expecting every moment that the heavens were to open and the Judge to appear. He refers very frequently throughout the book to the same subject, so much so indeed as to show clearly that it was from first to last his great point of contact with the invisible world.

ROB DONN.

ROBERT MACKAY, the Sutherlandshire Bard, commonly called, "Rob Donn," from the colour of his hair which was brown, was born in the parish of Durness, Sutherlandshire, in the year 1714. He very early showed his poetical talents, — some verses which he is said to have composed between his third and sixth year being still preserved. At the latter age he had the good fortune to attract, by his ability, the notice of a gentleman who took him into his own house, and kept him in his employment until the period of the bard's marriage. Shortly after this he was entrusted with the charge of his Chiefs (Lord Reay) cattle, at that time an office, though a humble one, of considerable responsibility and trust. This office he held for the rest of his life, with the exception of two or three years, during which he was a soldier in the first regiment of Sutherland Highlanders, and another much shorter time while a misunderstanding of some sort caused a slight estrangement between him and his patron.

Rob Donn died in 1778, being then sixty-four years old. He was greatly regretted over the whole country, where his fame is still most warmly cherished. No other of the Highland bards has had such justice done him after death as Rob Donn. A Doctor of Divinity collected, arranged, and edited his poetry, and wrote the Bard's biography. A monument was raised to his memory, and inscriptions composed for it in Gaelic, Greek, and Latin,* by a learned clergyman of the Church of Scotland. And finally, Sir Walter Scott himself reviewed, in "The Quarterly," Dr. Mackay's edition of Rob Donn's works, and gave his opinion that this illiterate herdsman was entitled to a place among the true sons of

* The Gaelic epitaph has been translated into English by Professor Blackie of Edinburgh.

96 MODERN GAELIC BARBS.

song. Rob Bonn was certainly a very shrewd, clear-sighted mortal, with a certain musical turn in his mind, and with no contemptible powers of satire. That he was a poet no one can doubt who knows his wit, his point, and sharpness. But even the verdict of Sir Walter cannot blind us to the fact, that Rob was not a man of lofty character, that he was somewhat wanting perhaps in deep feeling, and that, consequently, he had no very high powers of imagination. Very few, if any, of his own countrymen will be inclined to place him on the same pedestal with Macdonald or Macintyre, but all are ready to acknowledge in him a sensible, intelligent, and remarkable man, with a really refreshing and influential gift of song.

The following pithy little poem entitled, "The Greedy Man and the World complaining against one another," may pass for a specimen of his satires. The Greedy Man opens the dialogue thus : —

GREEDY MAN.

Grudging art thou, 0 World ! and always art so, Parting with those who have no wish to part so : The man whose greedy passions tie a string to thee, Falls on his back with nothing when he pulls it free.

THE WORLD.

'Tis you, ye fickle men! who always start so; 111 do ye keep by me who would not part so. My sod supports you underneath, as you see; But away you flit at once — and well may you be !

GREEDY MAN.

Oh ! if thou wouldst keep me, I 'd be thine indeed, Since beneath the sun lies all the good I heed : How canst thou let me go, perhaps to endless pain, When of heaven than of thee I am far less fain?

ROB DONN. THE WORLD.

Nay; but thou shouldst set tliy wishes much more truly Where lasting pleasure in return comes duly. Although the boor I nourish for a season, To keep him long I've neither might nor reason.

Rob Donn composed a great many songs ; some of these are not considered of a very high quality, and some of them are not of a very pure character. One which took its rise on the poet's being forsaken by his sweetheart is the best of the number. Rob Donn, following his vocation in connection with his master's cattle, was absent on a certain occasion for more than a year from his native district. On his return he found his faithless mistress engaged to a fair-haired Lowland carpenter. The song is descriptive of his feelings on making this melancholy discovery. But Rob appears to have had so buoyant a temperament that he could not help being a little smart, even in his grief. He was the author of the music as well as the words of the song. Its title is this : —

THE SHIELING SONG.

OH ! sad is the shieling,

And gone are its joys ! All harsh and unfeeling To me now its noise, Since Anna — who warbled As sweet as the merle — Forsook me — my honey-mouth'd, Merry-lipped girl !

Heich ! how I sigh ;

While the hour Lazily, lonelily, Sadly, goes by !

98 MODERN GAELIC BARDS",

Last week, as I wander' d Up past the old trees, I mourn* d, while I ponder' d,

What changes one sees I Just then the fair stranger

Walk'd by with my dear — Dreaming, unthinking, I had wander'd too near,

Till, "Heich!" then I cried,—

When I saw

The girl, with her lover, draw Close to my side —

"Anna, the yellow-hair'd,

Dost thou not see How thy love unimpair'd

Wearieth me?

'Twas as strong in my absence, When banish' d from thee — As heart-stirring, powerful, Deep as you see — Heich ! it is now,

At this time,

When up like a leafy bough, High doth it climb."

Then, haughtily speaking,

She airily said, " 'Tis in vain for you seeking

To hold up your head : There were six wooers sought me

While you stay'd away ; And the absentee surely Deserved less than they. Ha! ha! ha!

Are you ill?

But if Love seeks to kill you — bah ! Small is his skill!"

DONKf.

Ach! ach! Now I 'm trying

My loss to forget — With sorrow and sighing,

With anger and fret. But still that sweet image

Steals over my heart ; And still I deem fondly Hope need not depart. Heich! and I say That our love, Firm as a tower gray, Nought can remove.

So Fancy beguiles me,

And fills me with glee, But the carpenter wiles thee,

False speaker ! from me. Yet from Love's first affection

I never get free ; But the dear known direction My thoughts ever flee.

Heich ! when we stray' d

Far away,

Where soft shone the summer day Through the green shade.

\

The airy, haughty, heartless coquette of this little ballad is sketched with considerable spirit. " Ha! ha! ha! Are you ill?" is a touch of Nature. One sees the poor disconsolate bard stand- ing bewildered before her without a word in his head — so utterly cast down is he at the ill-placed mirth and cruel triumph of his fair-haired beauty. He has contrived, however, to make the lady show a little pique too, — "If Love seeks to kill you — bah! small is his skill!" — as if to console himself with the idea that his old favourite was not so utterly destitute of feeling, nor her old love, after all, so easily cast off without leaving a trace behind.

It would not perhaps be altogether unsatisfactory to know that

100 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

" Anna, the yellow-hair'd," met with some little bit of a dis- appointment herself in the end, in spite of her vaunted powers of attracting six lovers in one year, — and such is said to have been the case. A Gaelic note to this song declares that she married the fair-haired carpenter, but led an unhappy life with him, and never quite recovered her old spirits after the memorable parting at the shieling, recorded above.

The date of the following song is 1784. On the day when the news of the death of Henry Pelham, the prime minister, reached Durness, Rob Donn sallied forth among the neighbouring moun- tains in search of deer. After wandering about the whole day he found himself towards evening in a very remote glen, far from any human habitation, except one where lay a solitary old man suffer- ing fearfully from asthma. The gloom of night, the melancholy and desolate scenery, the lonely hut, and the poor old man, whose every gasp seemed to be his last, powerfully affected the mind of the poet, as he sat by the fire he had made, and thought and listened sadly, until blending the news of the morning so interest- ing to the whole country, with the scene before him, about which nobody cared, he began to chant to himself as follows: — He spoke to Hugh as if he were already dead; but just as he was closing the song, and going over the concluding verse for the last time, and styling the old man the meanest of mortals, he glanced up and saw that the miserable subject of his elegy — indignant at the turn the verses took — had risen from his pallet, armed himself with a stick, and was about to let it descend with all the force he could muster on the singer's head. Rob had only time to avoid the blow, and experienced some difficulty afterwards in pacifying the querulous sufferer, and leading him back to bed. The bard's friends are said to have sometimes laughed at this incident, but he himself always looked grave when it was mentioned, and seldom could be brought to speak of it at all.

HOB DONN.

THE DEATH-SONG OF HUGH.

DEATH ! how oft we 're reminded

To cry out for aid! When the small fall before thee —

The great low are laid; Since autumn closed o'er us

The hint you renew, With this stride from the court

To that death-couch with Hugh.

Oh ! if we believed thee

Not blind should we go, When there 's none of mankind

You disdain to lay low ; High and mean dost thou take them —

That byeword is true — Yonder's Pelham the high one,

And here lies poor Hugh.

You come in the one way —

Great griefs then arise ; You come in the other,

And nobody sighs ; Yet who can repose him

Where you ne'er pursue, In a golden mean careless

'Twixt Pelham and Hugh.1

They drop all around,

As if struck down with ball; The report is our warning,

And loud is its call : Thou, the least among many,

Hast thou heard of poor Hugh ? Thou, our chief man, forget not

Pelham, grander than you!.

102 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

Oh ! should we not tremble all —

Brethren and friends, When we 're thus like the candle

That 's burnt at both ends ? Where in all this wide world

Was one meaner than Hugh ? And the court the great Pelham

But one higher knew.

103

WILLIAM ROSS,

WILLIAM Ross, a sweet lyric poet, who has been very incorrectly styled, the Burns of the Highlands, but who might, without im- propriety, be called the Gaelic Michael Bruce, was born at Broad- ford, parish of Strath, Isle of Skye, in the year 1762. His parents were able to give him a good education, and young Ross, at a very early age, distinguished himself highly by his proficiency at the parish school of Forres, which he attended.

His father having become a packman, and travelling in pursuit of his calling over most of the Western Isles, William, while still a youth, accompanied his father in order that he might study all the dialects of the Gaelic language at the fountain-head, and make himself thoroughly acquainted with them all. He was so successful in this endeavour that he was reputed among the first Gaelic scholars of his day. He is also said to have known Latin and Greek well. He sang pleasantly, though his voice was not strong, and he played on the violin, flute, and several other instruments with considerable skill.

He became parish schoolmaster at.Gairloch, Ross-shire, and was very successful as a teacher. He showed a great deal of kindness, which attracted and attached his pupils, and possessed a pleasant humour with which he used to amuse them and lighten the weary drudgery of their tasks. He held this situation, however, but a short time. Asthma and consumption closed his life in 1790, when he was only in his twenty-eighth year.

William Ross is a graceful poet, perhaps the most polished of any of the Highland minstrels ; although he is certainly inferior to more than one of them in point of strength and energy. He is tender, and easy, and plaintive ; never aiming at great things, nor reaching lofty heights. In his system of versification he is gener-

104 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

ally even more elaborate, and always quite as successful as any of his compeers. In his descriptions of nature he is very sweet and pretty; but throughout all his poetry there appears that soft shade, along with that lack of vehemence and vigour, so observ- able in most of those poets who die young.

William Ross is said to have been disappointed in love, and to have suffered such grief in consequence that it shortened his life. After having been sometime confined to bed, he rose one fine evening in May, and strolling out, full of melancholy reflections, sat beneath a tree on which a cuckoo soon settled, and began to shout over his head. The beauty of the evening, the stillness of the scene, and the sweet voice of the spring-bird, together with his own sad condition, filled the heart of the poet and melted it, until it flowed spontaneously in the following strain. The poem is called, "The Cuckoo on the Tree." In it its author probably bade farewell both to love and poetry. He speaks of the loss of his mistress, and of his own approaching death, with sweet and tender pathos — in diction that possesses his customary finish, and in a style that is pervaded by his usual elegance and grace. The beginning of the fifth stanza, with its pastoral beauty, reminds one of Solomon's Song — especially the fourth line : —

The curl of her hair was so graceful and fair,

Its lid for her eye a sweet warden ; Her cheeks they are bright, and her breast limy white,

And her breath like the'breeze o'er a garden.

But altogether indeed the poem has no little beauty. It might be compared, or rather perhaps contrasted with Keats' pathetic and imaginative "Ode to the Nightingale," as at least the cir- cumstances of the two poets, if not their sentiments or their genius, were somewhat similar, in the composition of poems which may, not inaptly, be styled the elegy of each young and plaintive minstrel by himself.

WILLIAM Ros>

L05

THE G'UCKOO ON THE TREE.

SMALL bird on that tree, hast thou pity for me,

Out through this mild misty gloaming ? Would I were now 'neath the dusk of the bough,

All alone with my true love roaming : I would raise up a bield her fair form to shield

From the chill moory tempest blowing ; And rest by her side in my fondness and pride,

And kiss her young lips, sweet and glowing.

I slept late and dreamed, but 'twas no lie that gleamed

On my mind — Oh ! so sad and despairing — When a husband I spied with his beautiful bride

Affection's pure transports sharing : How my old love returned and cold reason it spurned,

Till I moaned and wept, wildly crying ; Every pulse, every vein, boiling — bounding amain —

With the blood from my heart quickly flying !

Yes, — I 'm pledged to her still in spite of my will ;

Alas ! and I 'm wounded badly ; But a look 's all I lack of her face to bring back

The health I have lost so sadly : Then I 'd rise without fail, and her would I hail,

Light with joy and not thus, sorrow laden ; She 's my own tender dove — my delight and my love —

The sun over every maiden.

Yet nought to me but a sting all her bright beauties bring-

I droop with decay, and I languish : There 's a pain at my heart like a pitiless dart,

And I waste all away with anguish. She has stolen the hue on my young cheeks that grew,

And much she has caused my sorrow ; Unless now she renew with her kindness that hue,

Death will soon bid me, "Good morrow!"

o

MODERN GAELIC BARBS,

The curl of her hair was so graceful and fair,

Its lid for her eye a sweet warden ; Her cheek it was bright and her breast limy white,

And her breath like the breeze o'er a garden. Till they lay down my head in its stone-guarded bed

The force of these charms I feel daily, While I think of the mirth in the woods that had birth ;

When she laughed and sported gaily.

Her mouth was so sweet, and her teeth white and neat ;

Her eyes like the sloeberry shining : How well will she wear, with her matronly air,

The kerchief where nobles are dining! Oh I if she could feel the like ardour and zeal

Which so long in my breast have been glowing ; And if she were mine, with the blessing divine,

I might turn from the way I am going.

Softly, some day, will they make in the clay

My bed, since her coldness so tries me ; I 've wanted her long, and my love has been strong,

And the greenwood bough still denies me. If she were thus low, with what haste should I go

To ask how the maiden was faring : Now short the delay till a mournful array

The brink of my grave will be bearing 1

107

MARY MACLEOD.

MARY MACLEOD, authoress of the following poem, is the first, in point of time, of the Modern Gaelic Bards. Before her day all that exists of Gaelic poetry is fugitive, and of uncertain authorship, or is Ossianic; that is, attributed to Ossian directly, or known, or supposed to be by some noted and professed bard of the middle ages, whose name is still attached to one song, or per- haps two — mostly in the ancient style, and on some Fingalian subject, but who has left behind him no body of poetry, and set no stamp of his own character and manner on the language of his race. Since her day, while the nameless popular poetry has all along been vigorously flourishing, there has also been a succession of bards who cultivated their gifts assiduously and successfully, and whose works, still extant, are classed under their name, and bear the mark of their peculiar faculty. These have carried Gaelic Poetry to as high an excellence as it is likely ever to reach. The Golden Age of the Highland Muses was in the middle of last century, when Macdonald, Duncan Ban, Buchanan, Rob Donn, and others were all living and composing together. The Moun- tain Melodies have since been on the decline.

The earliest of this modern school of Gaelic poets was Mary Macleod, better known among her own countrymen as, " Malri nighean Alastair Ruaidh" (Mary the daughter of red-haired Alexander). She was born in Harris, in the far away Hebrides, in 1569, and died at Dunvegan, Isle of Skye, in 1674, at the great age of one hundred and five years. She never learned either to read or to write, yet her poetry is pure and chaste in its diction, melodious, though complicated, in its metre, clear and graceful, and frequently pathetic.

108 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

The song here given was composed by Mary Macleod, on her being banished from Dunvegan, for some real or imaginary offence, by the arbitrary young Chief, whose praises she sings with such delight and enthusiasm, — as sitting by the sea-side in Scarba her heart is oppressed by the thought of her absence from her beloved Skye, and from his gracious presence, who was to her its hero and its sun. It is satisfactory to know that the young gentleman of whom poor Mary has given so flattering a portrait — probably his only remaining title to consideration — relented sufficiently at the sound of his own praises, or in respect for the genius of his clanswoman, that he gave her permission to return forthwith to his dominions, and he even sent a boat to bring her back. He is said to have been particularly good to the affectionate poetess ever after.

MACLEOD'S DITTY.

ALONE on the hill-top,

Sadly and silently, Downward on Islay

And over the sea — I look and I wonder

How time hath deceived me : A stranger in Scarba

Who ne'er thought to be.

Ne'er thought it, my island !

Where rests the deep dark shade Thy grand mossy mountains

For ages have made — God bless thee, and prosper !

Thy chief of the sharp blade, All over these islands,

His fame never fade !

MARY MACLEOD.

Never fade it, Sir Norinan !

For well 'tis the right Of thy name to win credit

In counsel or fight; By wisdom, by shrewdness,

By spirit, by might, By manliness, courage,

By daring, by sleight.

In counsel or fight, thy kindred

Know these should be thine — Branch of Lochlin's wide-ruling

And king-bearing line ! And in Erin they know it —

Far over the brine : No earl would in Albin

Thy friendship decline.

Yes ! the nobles of Erin

Thy titles well know, To the honour and friendship

Of high and of low. Born the deed-marks to follow,

Thy father did show, — That friend of the noble —

That manliest foe.

That friend of the noble —

From him art thou heir To virtues which Albin

Was proud to declare : Crown' d the best of her chieftains

Long, long may'st thou wear The blossoms paternal

His broad branches bare !

0 banner'd Clan Ruari! Whose loss is my woe,

110 MODERN GAELIC BAUDS.

Of this chief who survives May I ne'er hear he 's low ;

But, darling of mortals ! From him though I go,

Long the shapeliest, comliest Form may he show!

The shapeliest, comliest —

Faultless in bearing — Cheerful, cordial and kind,

The red and white wearing, Well looks the blue-eyed chief;

Blue, bright, and daring, His eye o'er his red cheek shines,

Blue, bright, calmly daring,

His red cheek shines,

Like hip on the brier-tree, 'Neath the choicest of curly hair

Waving and free. A warm hearth, a drinking cup,

Meat shall he see, And a choice of good armour

Whoe'er visits thee.

Drinking-horns, trenchers bright,

And arms old and new ; Long, narrow-bladed swords,

Cold, clear, and blue — These are seen in thy mansion,

With rifles and carbines, too ; And hempen-strung long-bows,

Of hard, healthy yew.

Long-bows and cross-bows, With strings that well wear;

Arrows, with polish'd heads, In quivers full and fair,

MARY MACLEOD.

From the eagle's wing feather'd,

With silk fine and rare ; And guns dear to purchase —

Long, slender — are there.

My heart's with thee, hero !

May Mary's Son keep My stripling, who loves

The lone forest to sweep ; Rejoicing to feel there

The solitude deep Of the long moor and valley,

And rough mountain steep.

The mountain steep searching

And rough rocky chains; The old dogs he caresses,

The young dogs he restrains : Then, soon from my chieftain's spear

The life-blood rains Of the red-hided deer or doe

And the green heather stains.

Ill

Fall the red stag, the white-bellied doe ;

Then stand on the heather, Thy gentle companions,

Well arm'd altogether, Well taught in the hunter's craft,

Well skilTd in the weather; They know the rough sea as well

As the green heather !

112

MACGREGOR'S LULLABY.

" ON the sixteenth of June, 1552, says the curate of Fortingall, Duncan Macgregor and his sons, Gregor and Malcolm Roy, were beheaded by Colin Campbell of Glenurchy, Campbell of Glen] yon, andMenziesof Rannoch." — " Sketches of early Scottish History," page 355, &c. The authoress of the following ballad was a daughter of Colin Campbell of Glenurchy, and the wife of Gregor Macgregor, whose death she so feelingly laments. The Black Duncan mentioned was her brother. He was called " Donachadh dubh a' Churaichd," or Black Duncan of the Cowl, from some peculiar head-dress he was in the habit of wearing, and in which it is said he is represented in his picture still preserved at Taymouth Castle. This chief, the seventh laird of Glenruchy, was a man of some mark in his day. He played his part in the fierce politics of the time, and managed his own estate, as is seen from contemporary records, in a very businesslike and careful manner. Like his unfortunate sister, however, he had also something of a finer turn. " Black Duncan," says Professor Innes, " had a taste for books — read history and romance — and is not quite free from a suspicion of having dabbled in verse himself." Although his sister does not spare him in her denunciation of her kindred, he must have been quite scatheless of causing her sufferings, for he appears to have been only seven years old when Gregor Macgregor was executed. Duncan Laideus, alias Macgregor, father of this Gregor, has had his name, some time or other, put at the head of an interesting old Scottish Poem, from which Professor Innes gives some very pleasing extracts. It is called " Duncan Laideus, alias Macgregor's Testament," and is " found written on the blank leaves at the end of one of the copies of the romance of Alexander," a favourite book with (( Black Duncan of the Cowl."

MACGREOOR S LULLABY.

113

GREGOR MACGREGOR'S LAMENT.

EARLY on a Lammas morning, With my husband was I gay ; But my heart got sorely wounded Ere the middle of the day. Ochan, ochan, ochan uiri,

Though I cry, my child, with thee- Ochan, ochan, ochan uiri,

Now he hears not thee nor me !

Malison on judge and kindred, They have wrought me mickle woe ;

With deceit they came about us, — Through deceit they laid him low. Ochan, ochan, &c.

Had they met but twelve Macgregors, With my Gregor at their head ;

Now my child had not been orphaned, Nor these bitter tears been shed.

Ochan, ochan, &c.

On an oaken block they laid him, And they spilt his blood around ;

I'd have drunk it in a goblet Largely, ere it reached the ground. Ochan, ochan, &c.

Would my father then had sickened — Colin, with the plague been ill;

Though Rory's daughter, in her anguish, Smote her palms and cried her fill. Ochan, ochan, &c.

I could Colin shut in prison, And Black Duncan put in ward, —

I 1 4 MODERN GAELIC BARDS'.

Every Campbell now in Bealach, Bind with handcuffs, close and hard. Ochan, ochan, &c.

When I reached the plain of Bealach, I got there, nor rest, nor calm ;

But my hair I tore in pieces, — Wore the ski n from off each palm ! Ochan, ochan, &c.

Oh ! could I fly up with the skylark — Had I Gregor's strength in hand ;

The highest stone that's in yon castle, Should lie lowest on the land.

Ochan, ochan, &c.

Would I saw Pinlarig blazing,

And the smoke of Bealach smelled,

So that fair, soft-handed Gregor In these arms once more I held.

Ochan, ochan, &c.

While the rest have all got lovers Now a lover have I none ;

My fair blossom, fresh and fragrant, Withers on the ground alone.

Ochan, ochan, &c.

While all other wives the night-time Pass in slumber's balmy bands,

I, upon my bedside weary,

Never cease to wring my hands.

Ochan, ochan. &c.

Far, far better be with Gregor Where the heather 's in its prime,

•.KKr.nll S LI LLAliY.

Than with mean and Lowland barons In a house of stone and lime.

Ochan, ochau, &c.

Greatly better be with Gregor

Where the herds stray o'er the vale,

Than with little Lowland barons Drinking of their wine and ale,

Ochan, ochan, &c.

Greatly better be with Gregor

In a mantle rude and torn, Than with little Lowland barons

Where fine silk and lace are worn. Ochan, ochan, &c.

Though it rained and roared together,

All throughout the stormy day, Gregor, in a crag, could find me

A kind shelter where to stay,

Ochan, ochan, &c.

Balm, bahu, little nursling —

Oh ! so tender now and weak ; I fear the day will never brighten When revenge for him you 11 seek Ochan, ochan, ochan uiri,

Though I cry, my child, with thee — Ochan, ochan, ochan uiri, Yet he hears not thee nor me !

The terrible persecution which the MacGregors were subjected to — the cruel sufferings which for many years they had to struggle against, when their whole tribe was outlawed, their lands confis- cated, and their name proscribed — Sir Walter Scott has made familiar to many who would perhaps have never heard but for him of the valorous endurance of the "clan that was nameless by day."

116 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

That the great novelist has done justice to the indomitable energy, the terrible prowess, the courage, and the wild heroic fidelity of this much wronged sept, there is no one can venture to dispute. But certain warm-hearted Highlanders — who feel peculiarly interested in all the brave men who spoke the mother tongue of the Gael in other days — assert that the poet, to say the least of it, has fixed too exclusively on the fiercer and more savage attributes of the banished clan. It may be Sir Walter really did exaggerate, for artistic purposes, those harsher traits of character which must have in some degree existed among the MacGregors when subjected to such vile treatment as theirs was — unless they were actually some- thing more than mortal ; or it may perhaps as likely be that the kindly partiality of the modern Celts has closed their eyes, when they think so, on some of the ruder doings of the outlawed and exasperated mountaineers. At any rate, there seems to be some force in the reasoning which the novelist has put into the mouth of Ranald MacEagh in Argyll's dungeon, when he says, " I am a man like my forefathers ; while wrapped in the mantle of peace we were lambs ; it was rent from us, and ye now call us wolves. Give us the huts ye have burned, our children whom ye have murdered, our widows whom ye have starved ; collect from the gibbet and the pole the mangled carcasses and whitened skulls of our kinsmen ; bid them live and bless us, and we will be your vassals and brothers; till then let death and blood and mutual wrong draw a dark veil of division between us." There is here a natural eloquence and logic of facts which cannot fail to find an echo in the most peaceful heart amongst us. If the Children of the Mist did not feel such sentiments, at least they are amazingly like the sentiments by which we can most readily suppose we would be actuated in their circumstances. But, however that may be, certainly the following song does not breath the fiery energy of Ranald's hostility; nor is it at all tinged with the vindictive spirit which scandalized Captain Dalgetty in the parting injunc- tions of the old cateran to his grandson, Kenneth of the Mist : —

MA«;RI;GUK o RUAKA.

1 17

There is sorrow, and sorrow, and sorrow now fills me —

Poor pitiful sorrow no man can redress; It is sorrow, and sighing, and sadness that thrills me—

Oh ! terrible sadness I cannot repress.

MacGregor has perish'd — MacGregor, pine-banner' d — MacGregor, beloved in Glen-Lyon the green —

MacGregor, the brave, by whose foes ever honour'd The threatning roar of our pibroch hath been.

His badge was the pine — known the steep hill ascending — His arrows were wing'd from the* true bird's brown side ;

'T was a joy for a prince when the hero was sending The smooth polish'd shafts from the bow of his pride.

By that strong arm well aim'd, son of Murdoch the fearless — Swift, silent, and deadly they darted from thee ;

Then, if wrong e'er was done us, MacGregor the peerless, Soon our foes saw thy standard, and trembled to see !

But now when they hurt us, we bear uncomplaining — MacGregor and all that would help us are gone;

And the thoughts of our sad hearts with them are remaining In the chapel that stands near the valley alone.

My kinsmen, co-nurtured ! 0 you that could right me !

It grieves and it wounds me the blank you have made ; Your death and your absence for ever affright me,

And the dark narrow bed where your heads low are laid!

Now in shirts of pale linen so lonely you 're lying, No bands and no silks and no tartans you wear ;

Ourselves sew'd yoiir white robes, with sorrow and sighing; No gentle dames wrought with us — wept with us, there.

* The true bird (am fior eun) is a poetic name for the eagle. Tho common name is " Fiolair," a word rather difficult to pronounce \iith a right accent.

1 1 8 MODERN GAELIC BARDS.

Now this counsel of me, who your safety am seeking, Take you for your guidance, young clansmen of mine ;

When you go to the inn where the strangers sit speaking, More than one draught, for your life's sake, decline.

Take the dish which they offer; be cautious and wary — There is no man you meet with but may be a foe ;

While you drink, remain standing, and