Blair Collection > Selections from the Gaelic bards

38 MODERN GAELIC BA1U».
The health of James Stuart
With welcome send it round ;
Without reserve receive it —
This holy pledge we sound.
Now fill a draught for Charlie —
Rogue ! let this cup o 'erfiow ;
Ha ! 'tis a balm to heal our hearts —
Revive us when we 're low.
Yea ! should death's hand be laying us
Weak, wan beside the grave,
Oh, Universal King! return —
Return him o'er the wave.
Hard is the case of all his friends,
Because of his delay ;
They are like a callow orphan'd brood —
Like garden bees, a prey
To the destructive fox, when faint
They drop along the brae ;
Come quickly with thy fleet, and drive
Thy people's plague away.
Macdonald is said to have gone over the Highlands singing the
Song from which these verses are taken, and rousing his country-
men with its energetic appeals to rise and join Prince Charles.
The rest of the Song consists of an address to all the Clans
successively, so very similar to that contained in the Clan Song in
Waverley, "There is mist on the mountain and night on the vale,"
that a reader of Sir Walter Scott's spirited imitation will be able
to form an exceedingly correct notion, both of the nature of this
and all other Clan Songs of the Highlands.
Also, a species of Clan Song is Macdonald's poem entitled, "The
Praise of the Lion," in which he celebrates so cordially the prowess,
valour, and greatness of all the septs that bore his own dis-
tinguished name. It is, at the same time, no unfair specimen of
those War-songs, or Battle incitements, as they were called, with