Blair Collection > Sar-obair nam bard gaelach, or, The beauties of Gaelic poetry, and lives of the Highland bards

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ij Ivi INTRaDUCTION.
bued with the same feelings — they used the same musical scale to poetry constructed on
the same principle.
The prevalence of poems which detail the calamities of war, deaths of heroes, dis-
appointments of lovers, ravages of storms, disasters at sea, Sic, with melodies suitable to
such lamentable subjects, shows, that tragic events leave a deep and enduring impression ;
while convivial, humorous and satiric effusions, are usually forgotten with the persons or
incidents from whicli they arose.* The bards sought not to avoid the melancholy vein —
tiiey rather gave way to the feeling, and in this mood, many of their best productions
were executed. " Pleasant is the joy of grief! it is like the shower of spring when it
softens the branch of the oak, and the young leaf lifts its green head." That mind must
be little susceptible of the softer feelings of human nature, which does not sympathize
with the poet in the recital of a moving tale of wo. The sensitive bards are represented
as at times bedewing the harp-strings with their tears, while repeating the sad story which
the sterner chiefs could not listen to unmoved. A bard of Wales, about 1450, describes
a similar effect.
" The harper blest with lofty muse.
His harp in briny flood imbrues."
" Cease the lightly trembling sound. The joy of grief belongs to Ossian, amid his
dark-brown years. Green thorn of the hill of ghosts that shakest thy head to nightly
winds ; 1 hear no sound in thee ; Is there no spirit's windy skirt now rustling in thy
leaves ? Often are the steps of the dead in the dark-eddying blasts ; when the moon, a
dun shield from the east is rolled along the sky."f Beautifully does the bard again ex-
press himself. " I am alone at Lutha. My voice is like the last sound of the wind,
when it forsakes the woods. But Ossian shall not be long alone. He sees the mist that
shall receive his ghost — he beholds the cloud that shall form his robe, when he appears
on his hills. The sons of feeble men shall behold me, and admire the stature of the chiefs
of old ; they shall creep to their caves."t The closing portion of the aged bard's wish is
of a similar cast. See page 15.
The generous sentiments whicli animated the Caledonian heroes, are worthy of the
brightest age of chivalry.
"Puil mo namh cha d' iaras riamb
Nam bu mhiann leis triall an sith."
" The blood of my ibe I never sought if he chose to depart in peace."
Female beauty was a very congenial subject for bardic eulogium. The berries of the
mountain-ash afforded a simile for the complexion of health, and snow, or the Canach, the
white, flossy down of a plant which grows in moors and marshy iJ-round, vvitli the plu-
mage of the Swan, for the fairness of the skin.
• It must strike a student in tlie poetry of the Highlanders, as reniaiKable, that it exhibits much more
to indicate the state of hunters, than of shepherds or agriculturists,
+ Tighmora, 404. J Berrathon.
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