As specimens of the sweet and tender in Macdonald’s poetry, let us take a verse or two from his fine piece, The Sugar Brook. He has done for [this insignificant] burn what Burns has done for the Doon and Gray for the Luggie. He describes the different birds tuning their little throats in the morning to take up the several parts assigned to them in the great harmonic chorus of nature. He hears the rich treble of Robin, the deep bass of Richard, the “goo-goo” of the cuckoo; while on a stake apart from the rest the thrush sings lustily, and the blythesome brown wren and the vieing linnet tune up their choicest strings. The blackcock croaks, and the hen sings her hoarse response. Then come the fishes, the bees, and the frisking calves, the milkmaid and the herdsman, to fill up a scene already sufficiently gorgeous. There also—
The wailing swans their murmurs blend
With birds that float and sing;
Where joins the Sugar Brook the sea
Their tuneful voices ring.
Softly sweet they bend and breathe
Through their melodious throat,
Like the crooked bagpipes’ wailing strain,
A sad but pleasing note.
The following two stanzas are very fine in the original, and Pattison has very successfully rendered them into English:—