Shivering, eager to be engaged
Like hounds restrained by the leash.
This is not so far amiss, only “crush” and “leash” as it regards the vowels, do not rhyme. Look at the Gaelic—how simple; every word forged and hammered on the anvil of a Highlander’s method of making his thoughts known. Consider the sublimity of the passage. Dugald was not a classical, but one of nature’s scholars, who had learned his lessons well, and I am certain that in learning them he was not puffed up as they are, but rather humbled. Thunder, one of the most awful agents conceivable. When the thunder roars the earth keeps silence. A thunder held in the hand—how sublime? A thousand thunders, a thousand times more so. How are these thunders held? Like hounds restrained by the leash. Anything more expressive could not come from the lips of man. A hound at first sight of the game would almost choke himself at the first spring, if restrained. Are these things so; and how perilous the condition of those who are the enemies of the Great Judge? The air to which that poem is sung is also most appropriate; so that in singing it, one never thinks either of the language or the melody, any farther than that they are expressive; but has his mind wholly occupied with the sublime, the awful, and the beautiful imagery presented before it. I have heard that poem sung to a crowded audience, and I have never listened to anything spoken or sung that had a greater effect. Every eye fixed; all attention; awe, anxiety, concern depicted on every countenance. And I can tell Ministers of the Gospel all over the Highlands, that could they get two or three to sing that poem properly to their congregations, that it would have a far greater effect than most of their sermons. And I can tell them, moreover, that that poem sung once had a more blessed effect than all my sermons for a whole twelvemonth.
There are three poems of M’Gregors composed to suit the air of an old song, called “Gaoir nam ban Muileach” (The wail of the Mull women). There are seven lines in the stanza, and the last is repeated twice. In singing it it resembles the regular flow of a torrent, but when it reaches the sixth line it comes to a climax as if the torrent had become a beautiful waterfall. Or to use another simile. The first part of it resembles the Atlantic waves as they roll majestically to the shore, rolling and rolling along with a good deal of monotony till at length they reach the climax, when they break forth with a tremendous crash like rolling thunder. Were there a few individuals who could sing it together till they reached the sixth line, and then the whole to unite with them, there would be such singing as I have seldom listened to.
Thaom e spiorad neo-ascaoin
Air a naoimh ’us air ’abstoil,
’S rinn iad saighdearachd ghasda,
Mine, macanta ’n gaisge;
Cha do phill iad le masladh,
Ach troimh Chriosd a thug neart dhoibh,