A mournful cry amongst Conn’s[194] race,
Heavy indeed is now their loss;
As every one now follows John,
Silent they can’t be at his grave.
What grief did ever them o’ertake,
The race of Conn ne’er honour lost.
For John each man does weep,
Necessity leads us to his grave;
Sad is the land because of thy death,
Son of the noble race from Allan.
Great is our grief as thee we mourn,
Few are the men that shed not tears.
Sorely has it touched us all,
Grievous the tale that John is dead.
Tidings from the Dun went through the land,
The stranger now does o’er us rule.
Changeful the world down till John’s death,
Now they rise not to the fray;
Since then indeed thy race is sad,
This grief now has them sorely wounded.
’Tis grief to them that thou art thus,
Clan Dougall mourn for their great chief;
The conflict of their grief is long,
The tale which now is told is grievous;
Thou messenger who brought the news,
God made thee messenger of evil;
Ere men thy tidings did recite,
Pity they had not lost their ears.
The abundance of my racking grief
Has almost my eyesight ta’en away;
No feeble mourning is’t for John,
Tears for him I cannot shed;
Mourning for our buried prince,
The death of Macdougall of Dunolly.
His was the form of Conn’s great race,
Like a nut kernel, fair and rounded;
His death has been a grievous breach,
The very waves sing his lament.
Above the beach,[195] since John has died,
No ceasing is there of men’s sorrow;
Men speak not even now of joy,
Since that this grief has on them seized;
Bitter sorrow has them filled,
No word of sport, of music none;
That way is called the sacred way,
That from the beach leads to the grave.
So do men thus mourn their loss,
And women too, who loved thee well.
Shall I from thy soft locks have honour?
In place of it I have but ruin.
I mourn as on thy grave I stand,
All I see makes me lament;
Women will not leave thy grave,
So truly heavy is their sorrow.
Raise up a tomb for our fair prince,
Let it be wide as Cruachan’s cell,
That men may see by what they do,
How heavily on them weighs their grief.
The clan with weeping do thee mourn,
Their soul is sad, they cannot sleep.
Dougall’s race before thy death,
Never did fear the face of foe.
Chieftain, thy death has come on them,
’Twould be no boast to rule them now.
Not few the women at John’s grave,
Pouring their tears from day to day;
Of women bands even by night,
With bare heads gathering on the plain;
No wonder is’t that they should mourn,
Because of John of brightest fame.
No day can pass but hearts are full
Of this sad tale, that wakes our mourning.
I care not though’t be thus with them,
Though they should feel what I don’t like;
Thy death for us is ill to bear,
Sore the state to which it brings us;
I stand amidst the gloom of death,
No word is there of wonted song;
My heart is truly rent in twain,
As we speak of his departure;
Never were we thus before,
That it is grief to ask, how fares he;
’Tis cause of sorrow that he is absent,
I mourn that he is no more with us;
Now that he sleeps in his cold grave,
’Tis melancholy what men feel to tell;
They cannot cease from shedding tears,
Castle and cottage both in sorrow;
The rising tide has swept o’er hills,
So for John do mourn his comrades;
Yet there’s no heaving of the sea,
Not of the boisterous sea at Connal;[196]
For thou art mourned, great chief of Conn,
In all the borders of clan Dougall;
The land for thee does seem to weep,
Loud is the cry, with much distress,
From the musicians of Dougall’s race,
The learned men, and leading bards.
On John’s grave lies a heavy stone,
’Tis grief to me to tell the story;
Far otherwise than Neil[197] would wish,
Does every scandal now appear;
Have they no care to see his grave,
Since that John has overcome them?
The race of Conn are now but few,
Since death has ta’en away Macdougall;
No pleasure in the violin’s sounds,
Nor writing poetry without him;
Poetry brings no honour now,
Since death has seized the son of Mary;
Few are the mouths that now can tell,
How commanding is her privilege,
Now that on their backs are laid,
Both the heads of the clan Dougall;
That John’s great power I do not find
Soon after losing John his father;
May God preserve thy noble nature,
Who wisdom learned from thy Isla[198] teacher;
Horses can’t insure a triumph,
Men must leave them, and depart;
After the three, our loss is great,
My heart, in truth, can find no comfort;
Mournful in youth to see such loss,
Death has seized two Johns and Alexander;[199]
Alexander, whom no restraint could bind,
That I of him should also tell;
Thy breast was stout to the rushing wave,
Thy body now! alas my sorrow;
Never do ye seek again
That John’s young heir should go to battle;
That he should stand ’midst battle’s storm,
Lest soon he come to his long grave.
[193] We have no written or traditional account of this poet. He
was manifestly one of the bards of the clan Dougall. The difficulty
of deciphering the Dean’s writing is in this case increased by the
peculiar measure of the composition, which is one of those well known
to Irish scholars, and where the accentuation is in accordance with the
Irish mode. The Editor does not pretend to have deciphered every line
with perfect accuracy, but he is pretty well assured of having caught
the meaning of the poet throughout.
[194] The clan Dougall, as well as the cognate clan Donald, were held
by the bards to have descended from “Conn Ceud chatha,” _Conn of the
hundred battles_, King of Ireland.
[195] The Macdougalls of Dunolly buried at the old Priory of
Ardchattan, on the banks of Loch Etive.
[196] Connal Ferry, on Loch Etive.
[197] There is considerable obscurity about these lines. It would serve
to elucidate the meaning if we knew of any feud between this chief and
the clan Neil, or any person of the name of Neil belonging to any other
Highland clan. The Editor has not been able to find any information on
this subject.
[198] The original here is indistinct. The word “noid illeich,” made
“an oide Ilich,” may be “nord Illeich,” or “an uird Ilich,” _The Isla
order_, meaning some ecclesiastical order in Isla, by whom he was
educated, or it may refer to the weapons of war for which Isla was
famous.
[199] Alexander was Laird of Dunolly in 1493; Greg. High. p. 83. His
son Duncan Carrach was slain young; Dean’s Obit. Greg. Ed. In Innes’
Orig. Par. vol. ii. pt. i. p. 114, we find that, in 1451, Stewart Lord
of Lorn granted to John M’Alan of Lorn, called M’Cowle, and to John
Keir (“ciar,” _dark_), his eldest son and heir, etc., twenty-nine
marklands of the island of Caruvray, etc. These are probably the two
Johns and Alexander of our bard. This holding of the Stewarts may
explain the bard’s reference to the rule of the stranger.
The author of this is Finlay M’Nab.
The sluggard’s Book of Poems,[200]
If ’t were your wish to write in it,
Among what they have left you’ll find
Enough wherewith to fill it.
Though many the men there be,
Who cruelly the people oppress,
Never will these be found,
Honoured in famous songs.
Of all the fruits of sluggards,
Though there be of them a thousand,
The house in which these do meet,
They ne’er can by any means reach.
They are both gentle and simple,
Dressed in their Sunday coats;
And yet of all their productions,
It happens we never can hear.
I won’t their genealogy tell,
Of their history nothing I know,
But that they are out at evening,
Followed close by their hounds.
Dugall, thou art their fellow,
John’s son of the polished blade,
In whom flows the sluggard’s blood,
Write thou in the Book of Poems.
Write knowingly, intelligently,
Write their history and their life;
Don’t bring a poem on the earth,
To have it read by Mac Cailein.
Remember this my claim on thee,
Gregor, as thou hast heard
That I have as an obligation,
All thine to put in the Book of Poems.
Let there be nothing in this poem
Of priests or of tenantry;
But nothing of this band there is,
Which is not in the Book of Poems.
The sluggard’s.
[200] The word “duanaire,” here used in the original, means “a
miscellany of poetical compositions.” The Dean’s MS. is a “duanaire,”
but not a “duanaire nan strangair,” for the Dean seems to have been a
most industrious compiler. This piece of M’Nab’s is a satire on lazy
composers or compilers. It is valuable as showing that the ancient
bards wrote their compositions. The number of such books must have
been large, although during the course of centuries they seem to have
perished with few exceptions.