Mo Valie Veg Og;
Aye longing to be leaving,
Mo Valie Veg Og;
To-morrow sees them cleaving
This frame; hope, undeceiving,
Lifts me with thee believing,
Mo Valie Veg Og.
The Owlet.—It is said that this poem was composed by a Badenoch deer-stalker about 1550. It is two hundred and sixty-eight lines in length. The “Owl” is the form of a dialogue between the author and an owl, which, old and feeble, the unkind hunter’s wife, who was much younger than he, brought in to be a fit companion for her husband. There is a good deal of cleverness and poetical ingenuity in the piece. It is the only composition of the kind in the language, and reminds us of “Listen Little Porker,” by the Welsh poet Merddyn Wyllt.
The Aged Bard’s Wish.—This poem appeared towards the end of last century, in the days of the Ossianic controversy, and has come under the suspicions of the sceptical. It was then regarded as an old poem, perhaps belonging to pre-Christian times. It probably belongs to the first part of the seventeenth century. It begins thus—
Oh! place me by the little brook,