Ossian Collection > Gaelic bards

194: ANCIENT GAELIC BARDS.
and is of course A^ery old. AVe see what daring
boatmen the Western Highlanders must have been, when
they could encounter and speak of the dangers of the
deep, in so gallant and dashing a fashion as it manifests.
But it may be thought, perhaps, that the Hebrideans
were thus taught by the ancient Tickings ; although,
surely they Avho lived in islands surrounded by the
Atlantic, to whom all its mighty moods were as familiar
as daylight — who had to contend with it manfully when
they sought to leave their homes — or when they ventured
to tax its prolific waters for their maintenance, needed
no Tickings, nor any other people to train their hands to
skill, or fortify their hearts, when they rode on the strong
surges of their own immeasurable seas. The vigorous
and elastic spirit that pervades the following verses, must
have strung the heart of many a hardy mariner who
loved to feel the fresh and briny breeze drive his snoring
birlinn, bounding like a living creature over the tumbling
billows of the inland loch, or the huge swell of the
majestic main.
A SAIL IN THE HEBRIDES.
We turned her prow into the sea.
Her stern into the shore.
And first we raised the tall tough masts,
And then the canvas hoar ;
Fast filled our towering cloud-like sails,
For the wind came from the land.
And such a wind as we might choose
Were the winds at our command :