DONALD MACRAE.
If not the most powerful, this bard is certainly the keenest and subtlest that the Highlands have produced. His father was a native of Glenalchaig, in Kintail; but Donald was born in the parish of Petty, Inverness-shire, the date of his birth being 11th November 1756. His parents were poor people in humble life, and their son got no education whatever. But Christian teaching and Biblical knowledge became a deeply cultivating power in his case. He earned his livelihood by labouring at his loom, when he lived as a cottager on the estate of the Earl of Moray in his native parish of Petty. He lived to the good age of eighty-one, his death taking place in 1837. He was buried in the churchyard of Petty, where a small tombstone points out his grave. He got his poems published in Inverness some time before he died, under the title of Spiritual Songs. He has composed a considerable quantity of poetry, the most of which is first-class when the bard’s theme is of more than local interest. He combines the spiritual insight and holy sympathies of George Herbert with the subtlety of Shelley. He is the only bard that distinctly illustrates the tendency to mysticism in Highland religion manifested in some quarters. His profound self-analysis may be seen the poem Luireach:—
Bha ’n inntinn dhiomhain riamh mar tha,
Aig spionadh tràth na h-ùmhlachd,
Mar eun aig itealaich gu h-àrd,
’Snach gabhadh tâmh ’san dùthaichs’.
Is coslach mi ri madadh tàir’
Le lotaibh grannd a’ bùraich,
Ach le a theangaidh a rinn slàn
Na leòin a ta ’ga chiurradh,
English:
The mind of vanity e’er so
Obedience true o’er-riding,
Like birds on flight in highest heaven
And ne’er on earth abiding.
I am so like that dog despised
That with sore wounds is moaning,
But with his tongue has healed his hurts
That caused his painful groaning.