Air nithibh faoin nach biadh;
’S a chailleas sibh ’ur saoth’ir gach la,
Mu ni nach sasuich miann?”
How smoothly and sweetly does that rhyme flow compared with the English. I have seen a book called the Highland Bards, translated by a great scholar, and although done as well as possible in a translation, yet every one who knows Gaelic cannot fail to see how far short it comes of the strength and beauty of the original. No man, however great, can do an impossibility. I have also seen translations of Dugald Buchanan’s Poems, and these by men who were greater scholars than himself; and on looking at them, I saw as great a change between them and the original as if I had seen Dugald himself when in his prime, and again at seventy, when it would be all I could do to recognise his features, but O how changed! Taking his poem on the day of judgment, I defy the English language to produce its equal as a piece of lyric poetry. In the language there is scarcely a single word coined from another language, perhaps a few from the broad Scotch that came to be naturalized—all the language of his native country, extraordinary for its simplicity and expressiveness. The rhyme of that poem is smooth, it is perfect. I have attempted, or should rather say, I have endeavoured to improve what others attempted, and the best I could make of some of the verses I give in the following:—
My worldly thoughts, O God inspire,
And touch my lyre that it may play,
That I may put in solemn rhyme
Thy most sublime and awful day.
O! listen all ye sons of men,
This world’s last end is come to pass,