Pity the man who lost his voice,
When he is called on to recite,
Who cannot speak so fast as needs be,
And yet’s unwilling to give up.
Who cannot sing an air or tune,
And cannot well recite a lay.
Who cannot put aside his harp,
Yet cannot sing as he would wish.
Pity him ever with his “dring, drang,”
Trying his verses to recite,
When men can neither hear his harp,
Nor understand the songs he sings.
Pity the man neglects his health,
And strives not his vigour to retain.
Pity the man who ever strives
To have the fruit he cannot reach.
Were I to wish to have such fruit,
Fruit which I could not reach on high,
I’d cut the tree down at the root,
Let men be angry if they will.
Pity.
[155] The fragments of Ossianic or Fenian poetry in the miscellany of
Dean Macgregor are now exhausted. They afford some idea of the amount
of such poetry in the Highlands at the time he lived. We now proceed
with those pieces which profess to be of a more recent date. These
will be found to consist chiefly of compositions of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. The first short composition here given is one by
a poet hitherto unknown to modern fame. Duncan the big, from Lennox
or Dumbartonshire, might be a man of some note in his day, but time
has obliterated all knowledge of him. His composition is of a class
well known in his day, and highly popular, being aphoristic. Several
compositions, consisting of a series of aphorisms, will be found in the
sequel.