Tire-lire, à lire, et tire-liran tire;
Vers la voute du ciel, puis son vol vers ce lieu,
Vire et desire dire adieu Dieu, adieu Dieu!”
The last line, if rapidly repeated with the proper beat and intonation, will be found a really very successful imitation of the concluding notes of the lark’s well-known song. Many of our readers will remember that the North Uist bard, Ian Mac Codrum, in his Smeorach Chlann-Domhnuill, manages very happily to imitate the smeorach or song-thrush’s notes in the burden or chorus; while Alexander Macdonald—Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair—very naturally falls, like the French poet, into an imitation of the wild-bird music of the woods and groves in a stanza that may be quoted not inappropriately at this season:—
“Cha bhi crèutair fo chupan nan spèur
’N sin nach tiunndaidh ri’n speuràd ’s ri’n dreach,
’S gun toir Phoebus le buadhan a bhlàis
Anam-fas daibh a’s caileachdan ceart,
Ni iad ais-eiridh choitcheann on uaigh
Far na mhiotaich am fuachd iad a steach,