’Us caoimhneas, gean ’us càirdeas
Siòr fhàs ann ar n-anamaibh.
Although my native country, I am quite ashamed of them. Is the schoolmaster a Highlander? Was it he who wrote the inscription “Mile failte” (a thousand welcomes) on the top of the arch on the occasion of a certain gentleman up the country taking home his English bride? I passed under it, and expressed my astonishment to see it, as the children spoke nothing but English on the street. Is the spark still alive in his soul? Is that spark capable of being enkindled into a flame? A thraill! Na’m bithinn ann ad ait, bheirinn oidhearp air mo chainnt-mhathaireil a theasairginn, ged a bhiodh i mar an t-uan ann am fiaclan casgraidh an leomhainn. Ye slave! Were I in your place, I would endeavour to rescue my mother-tongue, should it be like the lamb in the devouring teeth of the lion.
[11] A channel from a river to a mill, or a mill-dam.
[12] An t-alltan burn. When the Gaelic was spoken in Glenisla, the name of the stream was an t-alltan, the same as we would say in broad Scotch, the burnie, that is the small stream. But when the Gaelic ceased to be spoken, and the broad Scotch came in its place, they called it an t-alltan-burn. Now burn is taken from the Gaelic word burn, which means water, as the word whisky is taken from uisge (water), also. In singing this poem, where two, or three, or four verses are following one another without the chorus, let them be sung to the same key. It will sing to the air of “Och nan och, ’us och mo leon!”
GLASGOW: PRINTED BY WILLIAM GILCHRIST, HOWARD STREET.