Blair Collection > Songs and hymns of the Scottish Highlands

with all the brilliancy of Celtic fancy the charms of fair humanity. The Love Songs,
numerous, full of headlong passion, and set to very attractive melodies, form the largest
class, and their fervour and naivete give them a certain piquancy which is not unpleas-
ing. But the graces and felicities of the Home are not forgotten ; there are many
poetic addresses to newly-made brides and frolicking boys and girls, and lullabies to
the babies. One of the most popular songs in the Highlands is a lilt to a little Hii'h-
land lassie —
O, my darling Mary, O, m\ dainty pearl !
O, my raresl Mary, O, ni) fairest g'rl !
Lovely little Mary, treasure of my soul.
Sweetest, neatest Mary, born in far Glen Smole.
The Patrio) ic Songs are a large class, for the Highlanders love their barren land —
" her very dust to them is dear." Her historic scenes and the Highland dress,
language, and music are never-failing themes, in discoursing on which the bards
occasionally added such half-serious and wholly forgiveable touches of exaggeration as
the following —
Now, let me tell you of the speech and music of ihe Gael,
For Gaelic is a charming tongue to tell a bardic talc,
Fain would I sing its praises -pure and rushing, ready, ripe,
For Gaelic's the best language, the best music is the pipe !
But of all the Northern songs the elegies and other Lays of Sorrow are the most
striking and characteristic. The Highland Lament is a thing by itself, having no
exact counterpart in any other language, its wild, rich music presenting a perfect
picture of the weird and grand scenery in which it had its origin. The Gaelic race
has been cradled into poetry by suffering, and its spirit has been bathed in the
gloom of lonely glens and northern skies. Hence its songs have always given superb
expression to what Ossian calls " the joy of grief." There is, however, this difference
that while in the older songs the sadness is unrelieved and oppressive, the more
modern introduce a chord of sweetness to form a very luxury of sorrow. Thus a bard
laments the death of a child -
She died — as dies in eastern skies
The rosy clouds the dawn adorning ;
The envious sun makes haste to rise
And drown them in the blaze of morning.
She died— as dies upon the gale
A harp's pure tones in sweetness blending.
She died— as dies a lovely l.-ile
But new begun, yet sudden ending.
In bright contrast to these lays of grief are the Humorous Songs —serio-comic