For grateful hue or odour bland.
About thy lofty banks, my glen,
Be bending boughs and blooming sprays,
Where small birds sing from bush and fen
To aged cliffs their amorous lays.
There have been several translations of this much-admired poem, but on account of occasional vagueness of conception and obscurity of the style it has been found very difficult to convey with certainty and accuracy the sense of the original. In one hundred and forty-four lines the bard conjures up many scenes and images before his mental vision, and finally welcomes the “Hall of Ossian and Daol”—he cries, “Open, fly, the night comes, and the bard is gone!”
Among the poetesses whose names have not been forgotten in the story of Scottish letters is that of Mary Macleod, Mairi ni’n Alastair Ruaidh, or Mary, the daughter of red-haired Alexander. Her name as a poetess has become quite proverbial among the people. Apart from the mantle of poetry which she wore she was a very remarkable person, who would be long remembered. Like some others, her own assertive personality accounts for much of the popularity of her productions.
Mairi ni’n Alastair Ruaidh, who [has been regarded] by some as the first in point of time of the modern Gaelic bards, was born in Harris, in the Long Island, in 1569, and died at Dunvegan, Isle of Skye, in 1674, at the extraordinary age of 105 years. She received no education, yet her poetry is characterised by boldness, freshness, and originality. The metres she uses are often complicated and unusual; but the native melody of her song and the pathetic character of her conceptions render her poetry very enjoyable reading. She was a well-known visitor among her neighbours, who generally rallied her by references to a beverage stronger than water. Pattison translates a song she composed on her being banished from Dunvegan by the young chief of the MacLeods; who, on hearing her laudatory verses, sent a boat to bring back the affectionate poetess.
Alone on the hill-top, sadly and silently