Ossian Collection > Dean of Lismore's book

THE DEAN OF LISMORE. 107
The author of this is the Bard M'lntyre.^
What is this ship on Locli luch,^
Of which we now may speak ?
Wliat brought this ship on the loch,
Wliich songs cannot o'eiiook ?
I would like much to ask,
Wlio was it brought that ship,
Afloat upon that angry loch,
Where changes often come ?
The fierce wind from the hills,
And bitter storms from the glens,
Oft has the vessel from the shore,
Stolen upon the dangerous sea.
Stranger, who sawest the ship,
On the rough and angiy stream,
What should hinder thee to tell
About her and about her crew ?
An old ship without iron or stern,
Never have we seen her like.
The vessel all with leather patched,
Not even beneath the waves is't tight.
Her boards are trifling bits of deals,
Black patches down along her sides,
Useless nails to fix them on
Upon her scanty, stinted ribs.
What woman cargo is in the black ship
1 Nothing is kuo-wn of this poet. The satires on women, a kind of composition
modern M'lntyre, the bard of Glemu'chy, wonderfully popular, judging from our
has a place second to none among the MS. at the period. We only give a few
composers of Gaelic poetry ; but it would specimens of these, but there are several
appear that there was an older poet of in tlie miscellany, and some of a charac-
the name, and one not unkno^vu to fame. ter which, in modern days, one wonders
Four hundred years may produce no the Dean could have admitted to his
little change in the place which not a collection,
few men of note in our day hold in the
temple of fame, and greater stars than ^ Tjje only loch of this name with
the bard M'Intyre may have their lustre which the Editor is acquainted is Loch
dimmed by time. He is another writer of Inch, on the Spey, in Badenoch.