They may talk of the viol, and its strings they may try all,
For the heart's dance, outvie all, the songs of the dairy!
White and red are a-blending, on thy cheeks a-contending,
And a smile is descending from thy lips of the cherry;
Teeth their ivory disclosing, like dice, bright round rows in,
An eye unreposing, with twinkle so merry;
At summer-dawn straying, on my sight beams are raying,
From the tresses[129] they 're playing of the maid of the dairy.
My brown dairy, brown dairy, &c.
At milking the prime in, song with strokings is chiming,
And the bowie is timing a chorus-like humming.
Sweet the gait of the maiden, nod her tresses a-spreading
O'er her ears, like the mead in, the rash of the common.
Her neck, amber twining, its colours combining,
How their lustre is shining in union becoming!
My brown dairy, brown dairy, &c.
Thy duties a-plying, white fingers are vying
With white arms, in drying the streams of the heifer,
O to linger the fold in, at noonday beholding,
When the tether 's enfolding, be my pastime for ever!
The music of milking, with melodies lilting,
While with "mammets" she 's "tilting," and her bowies run over,
Is delight; and assuming thy pails, as becoming
As a lady, dear woman! grace thy motions discover.
My brown dairy, brown dairy, &c.
THE PRAISE OF MORAG.
This is the "Faust" of Gaelic poetry, incommunicable except to the native reader, and, like that celebrated composition, an untranslatable tissue of tenderness, sublimity, and mocking ribaldry. The heroine is understood to have been a young person of virtue and beauty, in the humbler walks of life, who was quite unappropriated, except by the imagination of the poet, and whose fame has passed into the Phillis or Amaryllis ideal of Highland accomplishment and grace. Macdonald was married to a scold, and though his actual relations with Morag were of the Platonic kind, he was persuaded to a retractation, entitled the "Disparagement of Morag," which is sometimes recited as a companion piece to the present. The consideration of brevity must plead our apology with the Celtic readers for omitting many stanzas of the best modern composition in their language.
URLAR.
O that I were the shaw in,[130]
When Morag was there,
Lots to be drawing
For the prize of the fair!
Mingling in your glee,
Merry maidens! We
Rolicking would be
The flow'rets along;
Time would pass away
In the oblivion of our play,
As we cropp'd the primrose gay,
The rock-clefts among;
Then in mock we 'd fight,
Then we 'd take to flight,
Then we 'd lose us quite,
Where the cliffs overhung.
Like the dew-drop blue
In the mist of morn
So thine eye, and thy hue
Put the blossom to scorn.
All beauties they shower
On thy person their dower;
Above is the flower,
Beneath is the stem;
'Tis a sun 'mid the gleamers,
'Tis a star 'mid the streamers,
'Mid the flower-buds it shimmers
The foremost of them!
Darkens eye-sight at thy ray!
As we wonder, still we say
Can it be a thing of clay
We see in that gem?
Since thy first feature
Sparkled before me,
Fair! not a creature
Was like thy glory.[131]....