The Modern Scottish Minstrel Volume Iii Part 34

I canna weep, for hope is fled, And nought would do but silent mourn, Were 't no for dreams that should na come, To whisper back my love's return.

'Tis sair to dream o' them we like, That waking we sall never see; Yet, oh! how kindly was the smile My laddie in my sleep gave me!

METRICAL TRANSLATIONS

FROM

The Modern Gaelic Minstrelsy.

METRICAL TRANSLATIONS

FROM

The Modern Gaelic Minstrelsy.

WILLIAM ROSS.

William Ross, the Bard of Gairloch, and the Burns of the Gaelic Highlands, was born at Broadford, in the island of Skye, in 1762. He received his school education at Forres, whither his parents removed during his youth, and obtained his training as a poet among the wilds of Highland scenery, which he visited with his father, who followed the calling of a pedlar. Acquiring a knowledge of the cla.s.sics and of general learning, he was found qualified for the situation of parish school-master of Gairloch. He died at Gairloch in 1790, at the early age of twenty-eight. Ross celebrated the praises of whisky (_uisg-bea_) in several lyrics, which continue popular among the Gael; but the chief theme of his inspiration was "Mary Ross," a fair Hebridean, whose coldness and ultimate desertion are understood to have proved fatal to the too susceptible poet.

THE HIGHLAND MAY.

I.

Let the maids of the Lowlands Vaunt their silks and their Hollands, In the garb of the Highlands Oh give me my dear!

Such a figure for grace!

For the Loves such a face!

And for lightness the pace That the gra.s.s shall not stir.

II.

Lips of cherry confine Teeth of ivory s.h.i.+ne, And with blushes combine To keep us in thrall.

Thy converse exceeding All eloquent pleading, Thy voice never needing To rival the fall Of the music of art,-- Steal their way to the heart, And resistless impart Their enchantment to all.

III.

When _Beltane_ is over, And summer joys hover, With thee a glad rover I 'll wander along, Where the harp-strings of nature Are strung by each creature, And the sleep shall be sweeter That lulls to their song, There, bounding together, On the lawn of the heather, And free from the tether, The heifers shall throng.

IV.

There shall pasture the ewes, There the spotted goats browse, And the kids shall arouse In their madness of play; They shall b.u.t.t, they shall fight, They shall emulate flight, They shall break with delight O'er the mountains away.

And there shall my Mary With her faithful one tarry, And never be weary In the hollows to stray.

V.

While a concert shall cheer us, For the bushes are near us; And the birds shall not fear us, We 'll harbour so still.

Strains the mavis his throat, Lends the cuckoo her note, And the world is forgot By the side of the hill.

THE CELT AND THE STRANGER.

The dawn it is breaking; but lonesome and eerie Is the hour of my waking, afar from the glen.[50]

Alas! that I ever came a wanderer hither, Where the tongue of the stranger is racking my brain!

Cleft in twain is my heart, all my pleasure betraying; The half is behind, but the better is straying The shade of the hills and the copses away in, And the truant I call to the Lowlands in vain.

I know why it wanders,--it is to be treading Where long I frequented the haunts of my dear, The meadow so dewy, the glades so o'erspreading, With the gowans to lean on, the mavis to cheer.

It is to be tending where heifers are wending, And the birds, with the music of love, are contending; And rapture, its pa.s.sion to innocence lending, Is a dance in my soul, and a song in my ear.

[50] This song was written in Edinburgh.

CORMAC'S CURE.

The following is a portion of the poet's "Lament for his Lost Love," on her departure to England with her husband. Cormac, an Irish harper, was long entertained in his professional character by Macleod of Lewis; and had the temerity to make love to the chief's daughter.

On the discovery, and its apprehended consequences to his safety, he is said to have formed the desperate resolution of slaying the father, and carrying away the lady. His hand was stayed, as he raised the deadly weapon, by the sudden appearance of Macleod's son; who, with rare and commendable temper, advised him to look for a love among the hundred maidens of his own degree who were possessed of equal charms. With the same uncommon self-command, poor Cormac formed the resolution of drowning his love in the swell of his own music. Ross applies the story to his own case.

Thus sung the minstrel Cormac, his anguish to beguile, And laid his hand upon his harp, and struck the strings the while-- "Since they have taught my lady fair on her poet's gifts to frown, In deeper swellings of the lay, I 'll learn my love to drown."

When Colin Cormac's guilty grasp was closing with the spear, Rush'd in the chieftain's heir, and cried, "What frenzied mood is here!

Sure many a May of ruby ray, as blushful on the brow, As rosy on the lip, is there--then, why so frantic thou?"