J. F. Campbell Collection > Selections from the Gaelic bards

188 ANCIENT GAELIC BARDS.
There's a stream from the side of the sad-faced maid,
Dyes her robe with a blood-red hue.
Hold thou back, thou wind ! from the mountain.
Let their image a moment stay ;
Nor sweep with thy skirts from our eyesight,
Nor scatter their beauty away.
O'er the glen of the rushes, the hill of the hinds.
With the vague wandering vapour they go ;
Bard of the times that have left us !
Aught of their life canst they show ?
The years that have been they come back as ye speak-
To my soul in their music they glide ;
Like the murmur of waves in the far inland calm.
Is their soft and smooth step by my side.
THE FOUR WISE MEN AT ALEXANDER'S GRAVE.
It may surprise some people to find Alexander the Great figuring
in a Highland poem. But he is very well known to the Gaelic-
speaking people, among whom he goes by the title of " Alastair
Mòr," words which may be translated "Big Sandy," quite as
naturally as Alexander the Great. The first time I heard this
name applied to the Macedonian conqueror was by an excellent
tale-teller, who offered to illustrate something or other that had just
been spoken of in his presence, by giving a story about " Alastair
Mòr." I thought_tlie man was going to refer to some of his own
cronies — the name he used is so very familiar in the Highlands;
nor was it till, observing my ignorance, he repeated the phrase
with marked emphasis, and translated it, saying, with some