William Ross, the Bard of Gairloch, and the Burns of the Gaelic Highlands, was born at Broadford, in the island of Skye, in 1762. He received his school education at Forres, whither his parents removed during his youth, and obtained his training as a poet among the wilds of Highland scenery, which he visited with his father, who followed the calling of a pedlar. Acquiring a knowledge of the classics and of general learning, he was found qualified for the situation of parish school-master of Gairloch. He died at Gairloch in 1790, at the early age of twenty-eight. Ross celebrated the praises of whisky (uisg-bea) in several lyrics, which continue popular among the Gael; but the chief theme of his inspiration was "Mary Ross," a fair Hebridean, whose coldness and ultimate desertion are understood to have proved fatal to the too susceptible poet.
THE HIGHLAND MAY. I. Let the maids of the Lowlands
Vaunt their silks and their Hollands,
In the garb of the Highlands
Oh give me my dear!
Such a figure for grace!
For the Loves such a face!
And for lightness the pace
That the grass shall not stir.
*****
II. Lips of cherry confine
Teeth of ivory shine,
And with blushes combine
To keep us in thrall.
Thy converse exceeding
All eloquent pleading,
Thy voice never needing
To rival the fall
Of the music of art,—
Steal their way to the heart,
And resistless impart
Their enchantment to all.
III. When Beltane is over,
And summer joys hover,
With thee a glad rover
I 'll wander along,
Where the harp-strings of nature
Are strung by each creature,
And the sleep shall be sweeter
That lulls to their song,
There, bounding together,
On the lawn of the heather,
And free from the tether,
The heifers shall throng.
IV. There shall pasture the ewes,
There the spotted goats browse,
And the kids shall arouse
In their madness of play;
They shall butt, they shall fight,
They shall emulate flight,
They shall break with delight
O'er the mountains away.
And there shall my Mary
With her faithful one tarry,
And never be weary
In the hollows to stray.
V. While a concert shall cheer us,
For the bushes are near us;
And the birds shall not fear us,
We 'll harbour so still.
*****
Strains the mavis his throat,
Lends the cuckoo her note,
And the world is forgot
By the side of the hill.
THE CELT AND THE STRANGER. The dawn it is breaking; but lonesome and eerie
Is the hour of my waking, afar from the glen.[50]
Alas! that I ever came a wanderer hither,
Where the tongue of the stranger is racking my brain!
Cleft in twain is my heart, all my pleasure betraying;
The half is behind, but the better is straying
The shade of the hills and the copses away in,
And the truant I call to the Lowlands in vain.
I know why it wanders,—it is to be treading
Where long I frequented the haunts of my dear,
The meadow so dewy, the glades so o'erspreading,
With the gowans to lean on, the mavis to cheer.
It is to be tending where heifers are wending,
And the birds, with the music of love, are contending;
And rapture, its passion to innocence lending,
Is a dance in my soul, and a song in my ear.
CORMAC'S CURE. The following is a portion of the poet's "Lament for his Lost Love," on her departure to England with her husband. Cormac, an Irish harper, was long entertained in his professional character by Macleod of Lewis; and had the temerity to make love to the chief's daughter. On the discovery, and its apprehended consequences to his safety, he is said to have formed the desperate resolution of slaying the father, and carrying away the lady. His hand was stayed, as he raised the deadly weapon, by the sudden appearance of Macleod's son; who, with rare and commendable temper, advised him to look for a love among the hundred maidens of his own degree who were possessed of equal charms. With the same uncommon self-command, poor Cormac formed the resolution of drowning his love in the swell of his own music. Ross applies the story to his own case. Thus sung the minstrel Cormac, his anguish to beguile,
And laid his hand upon his harp, and struck the strings the while—
"Since they have taught my lady fair on her poet's gifts to frown,
In deeper swellings of the lay, I 'll learn my love to drown."
When Colin Cormac's guilty grasp was closing with the spear,
Rush'd in the chieftain's heir, and cried, "What frenzied mood is here!
Sure many a May of ruby ray, as blushful on the brow,
As rosy on the lip, is there—then, why so frantic thou?"
The heart-struck minstrel heard the word; and though his flame, uncured,
Still fired his soul, in haste the shores of danger he abjured:
But aye he rung his harp, though now it knew another strain,
And loud arose its warblings as the sounding of the main.
Yes! 'twas an organ peal that soar'd the vocal lift along,
As chorus'd to the high-strung harp his words of mightier song,
Lest, hapless chance! should rise, above the swelling of the tide,
A remnant of the ambitious love that sought a noble bride.
But I, alas! no language find, of Sassenach or Gael,
Nor note of music in the land, my cureless woe to quail.
And art thou gone, without a word, without a kindly look
Of smiling comfort, on the bard whose life thy beauty shook?
Not so it fared with Cormac; for thus the tale is told,
That never, to the last, he brook'd desertion's bitter cold.
His comrades sorrow'd round him; his dear vouchsafed a kiss—
He almost thought he heard her sigh, "Come back again to bliss!"
THE LAST LAY OF LOVE. This was composed when Ross was dying, and probably when he was aware of his approaching end. He died of consumption, precipitated by the espousals of his mistress to another lover. Reft the charm of the social shell
By the touch of the sorrowful mood;
And already the worm, in her cell,
Is preparing the birth of her brood.
She blanches the hue of my cheek,
And exposes my desperate love;
Nor needs it that death should bespeak
The hurt no remeid can remove.
The step, 'twas a pleasure to trace,
Even that has withdrawn from the scene;
And, now, not a breeze can displace
A leaf from its summit of green
So prostrate and fallen to lie,
So far from the branch where it hung,
As, in dust and in helplessness, I,
From the hope to which passion had clung.
Yet, benison bide! where thy choice
Deems its bliss and its treasure secure,
May the months in thy blessings rejoice,
While their rise and their wane shall endure!
For me, a poor warrior, in blood
By thy arrow-shot steep'd, I am prone,
The glow of ambition subdued,
The weapons of rivalry gone.
Yet, cruel to mock me, the base
Who scoff at the name of the bard,
To scorn the degree of my race,
Their toil and their travail, is hard.
Since one, a bold yeoman ne'er drew
A furrow unstraight or unpaid;
And the other, to righteousness true,
Hung even the scales of his trade.
And I—ah! they should not compel
To waken the theme of my praise;
I can boast over hundreds, to tell
Of a chief in the conflict of lays.
And now it is over—the heart
That bounded, the hearing that thrill'd,
In the song-fight shall never take part,
And weakness gives warning to yield.
As the discord that raves 'neath the cloud
That is raised by the dash of the spray
When waters are battling aloud,
Bewilderment bears me away.
And to measure the song in its charm,
Or to handle the viol with skill,
Or beauty with carols to warm,
Gone for ever, the power and the will.
No never, no never, ascend
To the mountain-pass glories, shall I,
In the cheer of the chase to unbend;
Enough, it is left but to die.
And yet, shall I go to my rest,
Where the dead of my brothers repair—
To the hall of the bards, not unblest,
That their worthies before me are there?
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