Blair Collection > Gaelic names of beasts (mammalia), birds, fishes, insects, reptiles, etc

262 CUCKOO
Which being translated, is to the following effect : —
I found the nest of the heather hen
On the top of the stormy waves ;
While high in the skies rose the red-grey seal.
And a creel on her back so bare.
For love of thee I'm sad to-day,
I'm sad for thee and lonely.
For love of thee I'm sad to-day.
I saw the little kittiwakes
Our potatoes industriously till.
While the little brown wren with a pair of oars
'Gainst the wind a boat did puU.
For love, etc.
I also observed the young coalfish
Their distaffs busily ply.
While the elegant crane strode along with men
With a cask for those who were dry.
For love, etc.
I saw each slippery little brown fish
With a burden of faggots of fir,
And on her clumsy shell the buckie as well
Bore a load of mountain heather.
For love, etc.
On the winnowing-floor the eels uprose
And danced on the tips of their tails.
While the crooked curlew, with a staff and haloo.
Drove the sheep to the fold without fail.
For love, etc.
To give even a reference to the many Gaelic and Highland
songs wherein the cuckoo is more or less made a theme of, or at
least referred to, is impossible, so the attempt is not made ; it is
notable, however, that, in his dire love-sick distress, William Ross,
who is perhaps the sweetest and most graceful of our numei'ous
Highland bards or minstrels, it was to the cuckoo of the grove
he addressed himself for sympathetic relief, saying : —
' ' A chuachag nan craobh nach truagh
leat mo chaoidh
Ag osnaich ri oidhch' cheothar," etc.
O cuckoo of the grove, don't you hear how I mourn
And sigh on this dull misty evening, etc.
One Logan, who lived after 1748 in the South, was said to
have composed an ode to the cuckoo, which might have been
passed over with the mere reference were it not that it was
translated into Gaelic by " Caraid nan Gaidheal" ; it will be found
in the "Teachdaire Gaelach," for May 1829. There are only seven
verses, one of which we quote ; — the real composer, however,
settled after a long coi-respondence, was Michael Bruce.
Do choiUse ! coin nam buadh tha Sweet bird ! thy bower is ever green,
gorra. Thy sky is ever clear.
Do speur do gnath tha blath. Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
Mulad cha 'n 'eil a chaoidh ad dhan No winter in thy year.
No gearahradh ann ad thra.