As roll’d into himself he mounts the darkened sky.
The above is a specimen of Smith’s verse translations. From the same poem is taken the following to show the manner of his prose translation, in which the Old Lays made their first appearance:—
Translation.
But Ossian alone does not experience distress; aged Lugar, thine was part of the trouble. In thy halls were seen the feast, wax candles, and wine; though they be now desolate, they were once the residence of kings! But similar to the revolving year, Lugar and his beloved wife were seen houseless.
Travelling through the vales of beautiful Moialuin, the habitation of Lugar was found desolate, the kid broused on its green surface, stretching itself in sleep in the once joyous dwelling. In its window was the bird of night, and green ivy shaded its desolate walls, the greyhound and dun roe surrounded them, and his hospitable door lies sorrowful under the falling rains.
Sons of the hill, have you seen Lugar? Probably you rejoice that he is no more. But you shall decline like him, and your relations will one day inquire for you. Your children will shake their heads with sorrow, they know not the place of your abode!
The vicissitudes of life are similar to those of the year. I lived void of trouble in the summer of youth, like firs on the green Mor-uth, careless of the storms of winter. I thought my verdant leaves would remain, and that age would not injure my branches. But now I am forlorn like thyself, and my aged locks are on the wings of the wind; our joyful days are both gone on the wings of the blast to the desert.
The passage just given explains Smith’s failure to impress the public with his prose versions of Old Lays. It affords quite a contrast to the style of Macpherson, which was sententious and clarified by a Saxon as simple as that of the English Bible. In his Life of Columba, Smith gave translated specimens of the Saints’ Latin Hymns, of which an extract has been already given (p. 69). He rendered this passage of the Altus prosatur in blank verse—the beginning of the same in rhymed metre by the writer being else where supplied (p. 81). The following lines by Smith, accompanying the Gaelic of Taura, show that he appeared to better advantage in verse than in prose translations:—
OSSIAN.
Malvina, say what now renews thy woe?