How proud and happy I was with Allan
Beginning work in the gray of morning;
’Twere better far to be there than labour
A lonely stranger ’neath Lowland scorning.
I would not stay in my native island,
To my ambition the land was narrow;
When Lowland lasses inquire in English,
I say in Gaelic, “I came from Barra.”
This song is so painfully simple and commonplace, notwithstanding its popularity, that it can scarcely bear translation at all, unless the translator is permitted to introduce some of the stock sentiment and phraseology of the muse. One of MacLean’s best pieces is on the Laird of Coll’s Boat. Another of more than average merit was written shortly after his arrival in Nova Scotia. It shows the bard ill at ease in his new surroundings in the Coille Ghruamach, or Gloomy Wood. It opens thus:—
I stray alone in these woods of shadows,