Books and other items printed in Gaelic from 1871 to 1900 > Gaelic bards, and original poems

DUNCAN BAN MACINTYRE.
75
The clothes on the young maidens
Just showing to your eye
A strong and pointed well-made shoe—
I thought its heels too high.
When I went to the Abbey
It was a noble sight
To see the kings in order,
From King Fergus, as was right;
But now, since they are gone from us.
Our Alba wants the Crown—
No wonder, then, her once gay Court
Is like a desert grown.
There is a lantern made of glass,
With a candle in each place,
That yields a light to every eye
Around a litle space.
Nor less a cause of pleasure
Are the instruments they play,
That give a sweeter music
Than the cuckoo does in May.
A stately sound the coaches make,
With their trotting and their whirr ;
The hard-hoof’d, smooth-pac’d horses
They always keep a stir :
They frisk and raise their heads on high,
In their spirited career ;
Not such our heather pastures,
Nor the wild moorlands rear.
In the close of the Parliament,
There the same horse is shown,
Still standing where he used to stand,
On the bare way of stone;