[fraser] GAELIC FOLK-SONGS OF CANADA 5S 



From the lone sheiling of the misty island, 



Mountains divide us land the waste of seas; 



But still the blood is strong, aur hearts are Highland 



And we i-n dreams behold the Hebrides. 



We ne'er shall tread /the fanoy-haunted valley, 



Where, 'twixt the dark hills, creeps the small clear stream, 



In arms around the patriarch banner rally. 



Nor see the moon on royal tom.bstones gleam. 



When the bold kindred, in the time long vanish'd, 

 Conquered tbe soil and fortified the keep. 

 No seer foretold -the children should be bajilshed. 

 That a degenerate lord might iboast his sheep. 



Coime foireign a^ge! let discord burst in slaughter. 

 Oh! then, for clansmen itrue, and keen claymore! 

 The hearts that would have given their blood like water, 

 ■Beat heavily beyond the Atlanitic's roar. 



Fair these broad meads — those hoary woods are grand. 

 But we are exiles from our father's land. 



There is doubt as to tiie authorsliip of this translation, some 

 attributing it to Professor James Wilson; others to Hugh, 12tih Earl 

 Eglinton, among whose papers it was found. In Maroh, 1896, I adver- 

 tised in the G-lengarry newspapers for the original and received in 

 reply five Gaelic songs purporting to be the original of the Canadian 

 Boat Song, but 1 could not accept any of them as being genuinely such. 

 It is curious that Moore's Canadian Boat Song should also have been 

 a translation from an old French song, popular in Poiton, according 

 to Ernest Gagnon, Quebec. 



Railing at his hard lot, a pioneer poet breaks out: 



" Gach ceum a shiubhlas sinn feadh na duth'chsa, 



Gur coille duth-ghorm i air fad, 



Tha ruith gu siorraidh gun cheann no crioch oir', 



Is beachainn fiadihaicli tha innte gu pailt'; 



Cha'n fhaic sinn fraoch ann a fas air aonaoh, 



Na sruth a caochan ruith soilleir glan, 



Aoh buig 'us geoban 's na rathadan mora 



Na'n sluichd mhi-chomhnard le stumpan grold." 



Fifty years later, however, this same poet ca&ting his eye back, finds 

 his muse is more cheerful. The log-houses are disappearing, so are 

 the dense forests, the fauna is less formidable, the roads are improved, 

 the fields are beautiful, and if the heather and the golden broom are 

 not seen on the sloping foot hills, the verdure is at least luxuriant and 

 pleasant to the eye; «and he feels no compunction in placing the new 

 in favourable contrast with the old. 



