JAMES MUNRO.
A little volume, Am Filldh, mostly written by James Munro (1840), author of the “Gaelic Grammar,” contains a great deal of first-class poetry. In the composition of small pieces of the sentimental kind, Munro is scarcely inferior to Livingston in freshness and condensation, and is MacColl’s equal. We have in the “Filidh” several pieces by other hands, as well as excellent translations from the English. Munro was a man of thorough culture, and profoundly acquainted with the extent and idioms of the Gaelic language. Of all this there is undoubted evidence in his poetry. Here is a rendering of one of Munro’s songs, which is attached to a very fine air:—
Dark winter is going;
Kind breezes are blowing;
The mountains are glowing
With colours more fair.
The face of the flowers
Grows fresh ’neath the showers;
And warmer the bowers
Appear in the glare.
The summer advances
With heat-shedding glances;
His sunny beam dances
With joy on the cold.
The little birds singing,
The woodlands are ringing;
The primrose is springing
To deck the green wold.
The sun in fresh power
Calls forth bird and bower
In robes of fair flower
Enchanting to see
But, honey-lipt lover,
Thy charms I look over;
In them I discover
Sweet beauties more rare.
Come with me, then, dearest,
To woodlands the nearest,
To plight troth sincerest
Of love evermore.