The literature of the Highlanders : $b a history of Gaelic literature from the earliest times to the present dayMacNeill, Nigel
History
The literature of the Highlanders : $b a history of Gaelic literature from the earliest times to the present day
MacNeill, Nigel
Scottish Gaelic literature -- History and criticism
Full many in the churchyard sleep,
The rest are far away,
And I forlorn in silence weep,
With neither friend nor stay.
Death in my breast has fixed his dart,
My heart is growing cold,
And from this world I’ll soon depart,
To rest beneath the mould.
A new edition of his poems, with a sketch of his life from the pen
of Dr Cameron Gillies, was published some twelve years ago under the
auspices of the Glasgow Morven Association, whose members had also in
hand the erection of a monument to the bard’s memory.
ANGUS MACDONALD.
The compositions of Angus Macdonald, the Glen-Urquhart Bard, show
poetic genius of a high order in the few poems of his which have yet
seen the light. He has left some poems in manuscript which it is
hoped, will some day be published. The poems in the _Gael_ and in
the _Inverness Transactions_ remind us of the productions of very
kindred spirits, Livingston and R. Macdougall. He and Livingston
seem to have diligently cultivated the style and manner of Ossian,
particularly of the Gaelic of 1807. He was a master of rich idiomatic
Gaelic, and having also the “accomplishment of verse,” he could make
himself terrible or tender, just as his muse was stirred. He had a
particularly true eye for the beauties of nature; and was always
accurate and graphic in his descriptions. He possessed a keen and
cultivated ear—was a teacher of music for some time; so his verse
is full of melody and harmonious cadences. He excelled in poetry of
the Ossianic type; but, like all masters of the art, he shows also
much tenderness in his love lyrics. He was appointed the first bard
of the Inverness Gaelic Society, an office filled by Mrs Mackellar
afterwards. He received in 1869 a medal for a prize poem from “The
Club of True Highlanders,” London. His daughter, Mrs A. Mackenzie of
Inverness, has inherited some of her father’s genius, and is herself
the author of compositions of considerable excellence.
MARY MACKELLAR.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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