1901.
JACOBITE BALLADS.
I was looking the other day through a collection of poems, lately taken down from Irish-speaking country people for the Oireactas, the great yearly meeting of the Gaelic League; and a line in one of them seemed strange to me: 'Prebaim mo chroidhe le mo Stuart glegeal,' 'my heart leaps up with my bright Stuart'; for I did not know there was still a memory of James and Charles among the people. The refrain of the poem was: 'Och, my grief, my friend stole away from me!' and these are some of its verses:—
'There are young girls through the whole country would sit alongside of me through a half-hour, till we would be telling you the story together of what it was put myself under trouble; I make my complaints, wanting my comrade. Och, my grief, my friend stole away from me!
'Where are my people that were wise and learned? Where is the troop readying their spears, that they do not smooth out this knot for me? Och, my grief, my friend stole away from me!
'I was for a while airy and beautiful, and all my treasure with my pleasant James.... On the top of all, my Stuart to leave me. Och, my grief, my friend stole away from me!
'It is the truth I cannot sleep in the night, fretting for my comrade; I to be lying down, and he weak under cold. My heart leaps up with my bright Stuart. Och, my grief, my friend stole away from me!
'It is hard for me to lie down after that; it is an empty thing to be crying the loss of my comrade, and I lying down with the mean people; it is my death the Stuart not to come at all. Och, my grief, my friend stole away from me!'