My heart is growing cold,
And from this world I’ll soon depart,
To rest beneath the mould.
A new edition of his poems, with a sketch of his life from the pen of Dr Cameron Gillies, was published some twelve years ago under the auspices of the Glasgow Morven Association, whose members had also in hand the erection of a monument to the bard’s memory.
ANGUS MACDONALD.
The compositions of Angus Macdonald, the Glen-Urquhart Bard, show poetic genius of a high order in the few poems of his which have yet seen the light. He has left some poems in manuscript which it is hoped, will some day be published. The poems in the Gael and in the Inverness Transactions remind us of the productions of very kindred spirits, Livingston and R. Macdougall. He and Livingston seem to have diligently cultivated the style and manner of Ossian, particularly of the Gaelic of 1807. He was a master of rich idiomatic Gaelic, and having also the “accomplishment of verse,” he could make himself terrible or tender, just as his muse was stirred. He had a particularly true eye for the beauties of nature; and was always accurate and graphic in his descriptions. He possessed a keen and cultivated ear—was a teacher of music for some time; so his verse is full of melody and harmonious cadences. He excelled in poetry of the Ossianic type; but, like all masters of the art, he shows also much tenderness in his love lyrics. He was appointed the first bard of the Inverness Gaelic Society, an office filled by Mrs Mackellar afterwards. He received in 1869 a medal for a prize poem from “The Club of True Highlanders,” London. His daughter, Mrs A. Mackenzie of Inverness, has inherited some of her father’s genius, and is herself the author of compositions of considerable excellence.
MARY MACKELLAR.
A volume of goodly size, Poems and Songs: Gaelic and English, by this poetess, was published in 1881. Mary Mackellar has for many years been well-known as a woman of bright poetic powers; and her talents in this respect were some time ago recognised by the Gaelic Society of Inverness, when she was appointed Bard. Her poems are characterised by much vigour and freshness, and evince a subtlety of conception which is quite beyond the ability of the ordinary Gaelic versifiers. It is premature yet to judge what position she may take among the Gaelic bards. Her songs, superior as some of them are, have not yet been accorded much popularity. There is a sort of straining—an occasional abstruse Browning element in her Gaelic pieces—which is probably the cause of this and which has evidently resulted from too close a following of the abstract conceptions of modern English poets, the natural utterance of which Gaelic is somewhat unfitted for. She possesses keen and nervous sensibilities, and looks at nature with a warm, sympathetic, and observant eye. Like the brook from the gully she bursts forth with rich thought and melody; but her poems frequently want breadth of basis. She has generally the true inspiration, but she does not manage sufficiently to lose her self-consciousness—to fall into that state of abandon which is needed for the production of the highest forms of poetry. At the same time she has proved herself one of the best Gaelic poetesses the Highlands has produced. Her English pieces are vigorous and readable. They are not inferior to her Gaelic poems, although occasionally exhibiting want of Wordsworth’s “accomplishment of verse” so keenly felt by Hugh Miller in his own case. All Highlanders welcomed Mary Mackellar’s excellent contribution to their native literature. She died in 1890 in Edinburgh, and members of the Cameron Clan—her maiden name being Cameron—accompanied her remains to their final resting-place in her native Lochaber.
DUGALD MACPHAIL.
This cultivated poet, a native of Mull, author of An t-Eilein Muileach, one of the popular songs in the language, was a man of strong and well-cultivated intellect, who did not at all give us what might be expected from one of his rich poetic endowments. But what he has done is first-class. The most of it will be found in the “Oranaiche.” Macphail was also known as a most effective Gaelic speaker, as well as a clever writer of Gaelic stories. He has done good work in translating religious productions, his translation of MacLaurin’s magnificent sermon on “Glorying in the Cross of Christ” being one of the best little books in the Gaelic language.