ALASDAIR MACDONALD. 31 



the back -ground of the blue profound ! The other day we fell in 

 with some curious verses by the French poet Du Bartas, in which 

 he strives, and not altogether unsuccessfully, to imitate the merry 

 trill and rhythm of the skylark's song : 



" La gentille aloiiette, avec son tire-lire, 

 Tire-lire, d, lire, et tire-liran tire ; 

 Vers la voute du ciel, puis son vol vers ce lieu, 

 Vire et desire dire adieu I>ieu, adieu Dieu I " 



The last line, if rapidly repeated with the proper beat and intonation, 

 will be found a really very successfxd imitation of the concluding 

 notes of the lark's well-known song. Many of our readers will 

 remember that the Xorth Uist bard, Ian Mac Codrum, in his 

 Smeorach Chlann-Domhnuill, manages very happily to imitate 

 the smeoracli or song-thrush's notes in the burden or chorus ; while 

 Alexander Macdonald Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair very naturally 

 falls, like the French poet, into an imitation of the wild-bird music 

 of the woods and groves in a stanza that may be quoted not 

 inappropriately at this season : 



" Cha bhi creutair fo chupan nan speur 



'N sin nach tiunndaidh ri'n speurad 's ri'n dreach, 



'S gun toir Phoebus le buadhan a bhlais 



Anam-fas daibh a's caileachdan ceart, 



Ni iad ais-eiridh choitcheann on uaigh 



Far na mhiotaich am fuachd iad a steach, 



'S their iad guileag-doro-hidola-hann 



Dh-fhalbh an geamhrd's tha'n samhradh air teachd ! " 



The lines of Du Bartas have little meaning in themselves, and are 

 untranslatable, being simply an attempt on the poet's part, in some 

 odd moment of hilarity and abandon, to embody the notes of 

 the skylark's song in something like articulate verse. The general 

 sense of Macdonald's lines describing the irrepressible inclination 

 of all living creatures to be jubilant and joyous at the return of 

 spring, cannot better be rendered than in the first part of Scott's 

 introductory stanza to the second canto of the Lady of the 



