Condemned thus I am grieving, Mo Valie Veg Og; Aye longing to be leaving, Mo Valie Veg Og; To-morrow sees them cleaving This frame; hope, undeceiving, Lifts me with thee believing, Mo Valie Veg Og. _The Owlet._—It is said that this poem was composed by a Badenoch deer-stalker about 1550. It is two hundred and sixty-eight lines in length. The “Owl” is the form of a dialogue between the author and an owl, which, old and feeble, the unkind hunter’s wife, who was much younger than he, brought in to be a fit companion for her husband. There is a good deal of cleverness and poetical ingenuity in the piece. It is the only composition of the kind in the language, and reminds us of “Listen Little Porker,” by the Welsh poet Merddyn Wyllt. _The Aged Bard’s Wish._—This poem appeared towards the end of last century, in the days of the Ossianic controversy, and has come under the suspicions of the sceptical. It was then regarded as an old poem, perhaps belonging to pre-Christian times. It probably belongs to the first part of the seventeenth century. It begins thus— Oh! place me by the little brook, Of gentle wandering pace and slow, And lay my head near some green nook That kindly shades the sunny glow. At ease upon the grass I’ll rest Of the balm-breathing flowery brae; My foot by the warm wave caress’d That winds throughout the plain away. There the pale primrose let me see, There the small daisy close at hand, And every flower so dear to me, For grateful hue or odour bland. About thy lofty banks, my glen, Be bending boughs and blooming sprays, Where small birds sing from bush and fen To aged cliffs their amorous lays. There have been several translations of this much-admired poem, but on account of occasional vagueness of conception and obscurity of the style it has been found very difficult to convey with certainty and accuracy the sense of the original. In one hundred and forty-four lines the bard conjures up many scenes and images before his mental vision, and finally welcomes the “Hall of Ossian and Daol”—he cries, “Open, fly, the night comes, and the bard is gone!” Among the poetesses whose names have not been forgotten in the story of Scottish letters is that of Mary Macleod, _Mairi ni’n Alastair Ruaidh_, or Mary, the daughter of red-haired Alexander. Her name as a poetess has become quite proverbial among the people. Apart from the mantle of poetry which she wore she was a very remarkable person, who would be long remembered. Like some others, her own assertive personality accounts for much of the popularity of her productions.