I told my ail to the foe that pain'd me, And said that no salve could save; She heard the tale, and her leech-craft it sain'd me, For herself to my breast she gave. * * * * * Forever, my dear, I 'll dearly adore thee For chasing away, away, My fancy's delusion, new loves ever choosing, And teaching no more to stray. I roam'd in the wood, many a tendril surveying, All shapely from branch to stem, My eye, as it look'd, its ambition betraying To cull the fairest from them; One branch of perfume, in blossom all over, Bent lowly down to my hand, And yielded its bloom, that hung high from each lover, To me, the least of the band. I went to the river, one net-cast I threw in, Where the stream's transparence ran, Forget shall I never, how the beauty[108] I drew in, Shone bright as the gloss of the swan. Oh, happy the day that crown'd my affection With such a prize to my share! My love is a ray, a morning reflection, Beside me she sleeps, a star. [108] Gaelic, "gealag"--descriptive of the salmon, from its glossy brightness. BENDOURAIN, THE OTTER MOUNT. Bendourain is a forest scene in the wilds of Glenorchy. The poem, or lay, is descriptive, less of the forest, or its mountain fastnesses, than of the habits of the creatures that tenant the locality--the dun-deer, and the roe. So minutely enthusiastic is the hunter's treatment of his theme, that the attempt to win any favour for his performance from the Saxon reader, is attended with no small risk,--although it is possible that a little practice with the rifle in any similar wilderness may propitiate even the holiday sportsman somewhat in favour of the subject and its minute details. We must commit this forest minstrel to the good-nature of other readers, entreating them only to render due acknowledgment to the forbearance which has, in the meantime, troubled them only with the first half of the performance, and with a single stanza of the finale. The composition is always rehearsed or sung to pipe music, of which it is considered, by those who understand the original, a most extraordinary echo, besides being in other respects a very powerful specimen of Gaelic minstrelsy. URLAR.