Volume I Part 43 (1/2)

ISABEL MACKAY--THE MAID ALONE.

TO A PIOBRACH TUNE.

This is one of those lyrics, of which there are many in Gaelic poetry, that are intended to imitate pipe music. They consist of three parts, called Urlar, Siubhal, and Crunluath. The first is a slow, monotonous measure, usually, indeed, a mere repet.i.tion of the same words or tones; the second, a livelier or brisker melody, striking into description or narrative; the third, a rapid finale, taxing the reciter's or performer's powers to their utmost pitch of expedition. The heroine of the song is the same Isabel who is introduced towards the commencement of the ”Forsaken Drover;” and it appears, from other verses in Mackay's collection, that it was not her fate to be ”alone” through life. It is to be understood that when the verses were composed, she was in charge of her father's extensive pastoral _manege_, and not a mere milk-maid or dairy-woman.

URLAR.

Isabel Mackay is with the milk kye, And Isabel Mackay is alone; Isabel Mackay is with the milk kye, And Isabel Mackay is alone, &c.

Seest thou Isabel Mackay with the milk kye, At the forest foot--and alone?

SIUBHAL.

By the Virgin and Son![100]

Thou bride-lacking one, If ever thy time Is coming, begone, The occasion is prime, For Isabel Mackay Is with the milk kye At the skirts of the forest, And with her is none.

By the Virgin and Son, &c.

Woe is the sign!

It is not well With the lads that dwell Around us, so brave, When the mistress fine Of Riothan-a-dave Is out with the kine, And with her is none.

O, woe is the sign, &c.

Whoever he be That a bride would gain Of gentle degree, And a drove or twain, His speed let him strain To Riothan-a-dave, And a bride he shall have.

Then, to her so fain!

Whoever he be, &c.

And a bride he shall have, The maid that's alone.

Isabel Mackay, &c.

Oh, seest not the dearie So fit for embracing, Her patience distressing, The b.e.s.t.i.a.l a-chasing, And she alone!

'Tis a marvellous fas.h.i.+on That men should be slack, When their bosoms lack An object of pa.s.sion, To look such a la.s.s on, Her patience distressing, The b.e.s.t.i.a.l a-chasing, In the field, alone.

CRUNLUATH (FINALE).

Oh, look upon the prize, sirs, That where yon heights are rising, The whole long twelvemonth sighs in, Because she is alone.

Go, learn it from my minstrelsy, Who list the tale to carry, The maiden shuns the public eye, And is ordain'd to tarry 'Mid stoups and cans, and milking ware, Where brown hills rear their ridges bare, And wails her plight the livelong year, To spend the day alone.

[100] A common Highland adjuration.

EVAN'S ELEGY.

Mackay was benighted on a deer-stalking expedition, near a wild hut or shealing, at the head of Loch Eriboll. Here he found its only inmate a poor asthmatic old man, stretched on his pallet, apparently at the point of death. As he sat by his bed-side, he ”crooned,” so as to be audible, it seems, to the patient, the following elegiac ditty, in which, it will be observed, he alludes to the death, then recent, of Pelham, an eminent statesman of George the Second's reign. As he was finis.h.i.+ng his ditty, the old man's feelings were moved in a way which will be found in the appended note. This is one of Sir Walter Scott's extracts in the _Quarterly_, and is now attempted in the measure of the original.

How often, Death! art waking The imploring cry of Nature!

When she sees her phalanx breaking, As thou'dst have all--grim feature!

Since Autumn's leaves to brownness, Of deeper shade were tending, We saw thy step, from palaces, To Evan's nook descending.