The Modern Scottish Minstrel Volume I Part 42

Its bristles are low'ring With darkness; o'erpowering Are its waters, aye showering With onset so fell; Seem the kid and the yearling As rung their death-knell.

XI.

Every out-lying creature, How sinew'd soe'er, Seeks the refuge of shelter; The race of the antler They snort and they falter, A-cold in their lair; And the fawns they are wasting Since their kin is afar.

XII.

Such the songs that are saddest And dreariest of all; I ever am eerie In the morning to hear ye!

When foddering, to cheer the Poor herd in the stall-- While each creature is moaning, And sickening in thrall.

[90] "Birk-shaw." A few Scotticisms will be found in these versions, at once to flavour the style, and, it must be admitted, to a.s.sist the rhymes.

[91] Birds.

[92] The sides of the cottages--plastered with mud or mortar, instead of lime.

[93] Salmon.

DIRGE FOR IAN MACECHAN.

A FRAGMENT.

Mackay was entertained by Macechan, who was a respectable store-farmer, from his earliest life to his marriage. According to his reverend biographer,[94] the last lines of the elegy, of which the following is a translation, were much approved.

I see the wretch of high degree, Though poverty has struck his race, Pa.s.s with a darkness on his face That door of hospitality.

I see the widow in her tears, Dark as her woe--I see her boy-- From both, want reaves the dregs of joy; The flash of youth through rags appears.

I see the poor's--the minstrel's lot-- As brethren they--no boon for song!

I see the unrequited wrong Call for its helper, who is not.

You hear my plaint, and ask me, why?

You ask me _when_ this deep distress Began to rage without redress?

"With Ian Macechan's dying sigh!"

[94] "Poems," p. 318.

THE SONG OF THE FORSAKEN DROVER.

During a long absence on a droving expedition, Mackay was deprived of his mistress by another lover, whom, in fine, she married. The discovery he made, on his return, led to this composition; which is a sequel to another composed on his distant journey, in which he seems to prognosticate something like what happened. Both are selected by Sir Walter Scott as specimens of the bard, and may be found paraphrastically rendered in a prose version, in the _Quarterly Review_, vol. xlv., p.

371, and in the notes to the last edition of "The Highland Drover," in "Chronicles of the Canongate." With regard to the present specimen, it may be remarked, that part of the original is either so obscure, or so freely rendered by Sir Walter Scott's translator, that we have attempted the present version, not without some little perplexity as to the sense of one or two allusions. We claim, on the whole, the merit of almost literal fidelity.

I.

I fly from the fold, since my pa.s.sion's despair No longer must harbour the charms that are there; Anne's[95] slender eyebrows, her sleek tresses so long, Her turreted bosom--and Isabel's[96] song; What has been, and is not--woe 's my thought!

It must not be spoken, nor can be forgot.

II.

I wander'd the fold, and I rambled the grove, And each spot it reported the kiss of my love; But I saw her caressing another--and feel 'Tis distraction to hear them, and see them so leal.

What has been, and is not, &c.

III.

Since 'twas told that a rival beguil'd thee away, The dreams of my love are the dreams of dismay; Though unsummon'd of thee,[97] love has captured thy thrall, And my hope of redemption for ever is small.

Day and night, though I strive aye To shake him away, still he clings like the ivy.

IV.

But, auburn-hair'd Anna! to tell thee my plight, 'Tis old love unrequited that prostrates my might, In presence or absence, aye faithful, my smart Still racks, and still searches, and tugs at my heart-- Broken that heart, yet why disappear From my country, without one embrace from my dear?

V.

She answers with laughter and haughty disdain-- "To handle my snood you pet.i.tion in vain; Six suitors are mine since the year thou wert gone, What art _thou_, that thou should'st be the favourite one?

Art thou sick? Ha, ha, for thy woe!

Art thou dying for love? Troth, love's payment was slow."[98]

VI.

Though my anger may feign it requites thy disdain, And vaunts in thy absence, it threatens in vain-- All in vain! for thy image in fondness returns, And o'er thy sweet likeness expectancy burns; And I hope--yes, I hope once more, Till my hope waxes high as a tower[99] in its soar.

[95] "Anne"--Rob's first love, the heroine of the piece. "Similar in interest to the Highland Mary of Burns, is the yellow-haired Anne of Rob Donn."--"Life," p. 18.

[96] "Isabel"--the daughter of Ian Macechan, the subject of other verses.

[97] "Unsummon'd of thee." The idea is rather quaintly expressed in the original thus--"Though thou hast sent me no summons, love has, of his own accord, acted the part of a catchpole (or sheriff's officer), and will not release me." Such are the homely fancies introduced into some of the most pa.s.sionate strains of the Gaelic muse.

[98] Alluding to his absence, and delay in his courts.h.i.+p.

[99] Rather more modest than the cla.s.sic's "feriam sidera vertice."