See the palace of the brave!
Cause to us of sad lamenting
Till they lay us in the grave.
The other poetess is—
Isabel, Countess of Argyll. In the Dean’s Book this lady is described as “Isabella Ni vic Cailein;” elsewhere she is called “Contissa Ergadien.” She was Isabel Stewart, eldest daughter of John, Lord of Lorn. She was married to Lord Colin Campbell, who was created Earl of Argyll in 1457, and died in 1493. The poems of these two ladies are interesting as showing that Gaelic literature was cultivated in fashionable quarters at that period. I have attempted a literal rendering in verse of the Countess’s poem:—
Pity one that bears love’s anguish,
Yet the cause that must conceal;
Sore it be to lose a dear one,
And a wretched state to feel.
And the love I gave in secret