An Comunn Gàidhealach Publications > Deo-gréine > Volume 16, October 1920-September 1921

158
AN DEO-GREINE.
The parti-colour’d plaid, a splendid show.
Bestrides the breast, like ^Ether’s lovely
bow
On western clouds, when Sol the day
renews,
And ev’ry field is gemm’d with twinkling
dews
Encas’d within the silver-spangled sheath,
Hangs from its zone the pond’rous sting of
death:
Thus sleeps the thunder-dragon of the
skies,
Till storms in all their warring rage arise.
Before the Phelig’s finely plaited coil,
Conspicuous waves the grossy badger’s
spoil,
Whence plenty dealt, without the frown’s
alloy,
Can turn the wail of grief to songs of joy.
Beneath the knee whose beauty mates the
snow
The well-wrought tassel binds the gaudy
hoe,
Where red and white with rival lustre
blend,
And round the calf at equal angles bend.
Last, glancing as the polish’d jet, the shoe,
Adorns the foot that scarce imprints the
dew,
The Gael, thus equipt in full array,
Meet, with one foul, on friendship’s festal
day.”
‘‘Anon! the bagpipe pours its stream of
tones,
Swell’d by the peal of the silk-ruffling
drones;
With all the flight of quivering fingers
driv’n,
The torrent floats on the four winds of
heaven,
Rais’d by the quick or solemn marching
time,
On music’s wing the soul ascends sublime;
Full of the deeds that beam through' years
of old,
Our clans advance, in might and freedom
bold:
The muse, enraptured at Che bright survey,
Bids their lov’d names adorn the un¬
prompted lay.”
“With flags display’d Clann Domhnuills’
legal line,
And Stewarts’ ranks with martial beauty
shine;
The Cam’rons there behind their gallant
sire,
Hard as the flint, and fierce as flames of
fire;
MacLachlans, murd’rous in the van of
fight,
MacLeods, exulting in their native might;
MacLeans, whose swords could deal the
fateful storm,
When Mars and rage the battling hosts
deform;
Victorious Grants, the sons of chiefs
renown’d,
From where Spey’s current laves the
flow’ry ground;
MacKenzies, that wide waste the leagur’d
vale,
When the stag’s branching antlers mount
the gale,
MacKinnon’s champions join’d with black
MacRaes,
Whose bright exploits in glorious annals
blaze;
MacGregor's tribes with arms and prowess
steel’d
In furious combats never known to yield;
The hardy sons of Diarmad, fam’d of yore
(The chief who fell’d Glenshee’s destruc¬
tive boon);
The Frasers, awful as the lightning blast,
With heaps of slaughter’d foes to strew the
waste;
Chisholm, from northern glens with
marshall'd pow’rs,
And brave M‘Colls, from Appin’s sylvan
bow’rs;
With the strong ranks that bear the
leader’s name
Who gain’d, in Malcolm’s days, immortal
fame.”
‘Before the pomp, advanc’d, with kingly
grace,
I see the stem of Conn’s victorious race,
Whose sires of old the western sceptre
sway’d,
Which all the Isles and Albion’s half
obey’d,
The illustrious chief of Garry’s woody
vales;
His radiant standard eddying sweeps the
gale,
Conspicuous blazon’d with Clann
Domhnuills’ shield,
That rears Fames’ emblems on its quar¬
ter’d field,
The barge with furling sails, the gory hand,
The flying eagle and the croslet-wand;
Two bears, the types of vanquish’d
Lochlin’s shame,