Then of an autumn evening the train brought me into Edinburgh, the scales of familiarity having to some little extent fallen from my eyes, I thought I had never before seen it so beautiful. Its brilliancy was dazzling and fairy-like. It was like a city of Chinese lanterns. It was illuminated as if for a great victory, or the marriage of a king. Princes Street blazed with street lamps and gay shop-windows. The Old Town was a maze of twinkling lights. The Mound lifted up its starry coil. The North Bridge leaping the chasm, held lamps high in air. There were lights on the Calton Hill, lights on the crest of the Castle. The city was in a full blossom of lights - to wither by midnight, to be all dead ere dawn. And then to an ear accustomed to silence there arose on every side the potent hum of moving multitudes, more august in itself infinitely more suggestive to the imagination than the noise of the Atlantic on the Skye shores. The sound with which I had been for some time familiar was the voice of many billows; the sound which was in my ears was the noise of men.
And in driving home, too, I was conscious of a curious oppugnancy between the Skye life which I had for some time been leading, and the old Edinburgh life which had been dropped for a little, and which had now to be resumed. The two experiences met like sheets of metal, but they were still separate sheets - I could not solder them together and make them one. I knew that a very few days would do that for me; but it was odd to attempt by mental effort to unite the experiences and to discover how futile was all such effort. Coming back to Edinburgh was like taking up abode in a house to which one had been for a while a stranger, in which one knew all the rooms and all the articles of furniture in the rooms, but with whose knowledge there was mingled a feeling of strangeness. I had changed my clothes of habit, and for the moment I did not feel so much at ease in the strange Edinburgh, as the familiar Skye, suit.
It was fated, however, that the two modes of life should, in my consciousness, melt into each other imperceptibly When I reached home I found that my friend the Rev. Mr Macpherson of Inverary had sent me a packet of Ossianic translations. These translations, breathing the very soul of the wilderness I had lately left, I next day perused in my Edinburgh surroundings, and through their agency the two experiences coalesced. Something of Edinburgh melted into my remembrance of Skye - something of Skye was projected into actual Edinburgh. Thus is life enriched by ideal contrast and interchange. With certain of these translations I conclude my task. To me they were productive of much pleasure. And should the shadows in my book have impressed the reader to any extent, as the realities impressed me - if I have in any way kindled the feeling of Skye in his imagination as it lives in mine - these fragments of austere music will not be ungrateful.
EXTRACT FROM CARRICK-THURA.
Night fell on wave-beat Rotha,
The
hill shelter'd bay received the ships;
A rock rose by the skirt of the
ocean,
A wood waved over the boom of the waves;
Above was the circle of
Lodin.
And the huge stones of many a power;
Below was a narrow
plain
And tree and grass beside the sea.
A tree torn by the wind when
high
From the skirt of the cairns to the plain.
Beyond was the blue
travel of streams;
A gentle breeze came from the stilly sea,
A flame rose
from a hoary oak;
The feast of the chiefs was spread on the
heath;
Grieved was the soul of the king of shields,
For the chief of dark
Carrick of the braves.
The moon arose slow and faint;
Deep
slumber fell round the heads of the braves,
Their helmets gleam'd
around;
The fire was dying on the hill.
Sleep fell not on the eyelids of
the king;
He arose in the sound of his arms
To view the wave-beat
Carrick.
The fire lower'd in the far distance,
The moon was in the east
red and slow.
A blast came down from the cairn;
On its wings was the
semblance of a man,
Orm Lodin, ghastly on the sea.
He came to his own
dwelling-place,
His black spear useless in his hand,
His red eye as the
fire of the skies,
His voice as the torrent of the mountains.
Far distant
in the murky gloom.
Fingal raised his spear in the night,
His challenge
was heard on the plain -
"Son of the night, from my side,
Take the wind
- away;
Why shouldst come to my presence, feeble one,
Thy form as
powerless as thy arms?
Do I dread thy dark-brown shape,
Spirit of the
circles of Lodin?
'Weak is thy shield and thy form of subtle cloud,
Thy
dull-edged sword as fire in the great waves,
A blast parts them
asunder,
And thou [thyself] art straightway dispersed
From my presence,
dark son of the skies.
Call thy blast - away !"
"Wouldst thou drive me from my own
circle?"
Said the hollow voice of eeriest sound.
"To me bends the host of
the braves;
I look from my wood on the people,
And they fall as ashes
before my sight;
From my breath comes the blast of death;
I come forth on
high on the wind;
The storms are pouring aloft
Around my brow, cold,
gloomy, and dark.
Calm is my dwelling in the clouds,
Pleasant the great
fields of my repose."
"Dwell in thy plain;"
Said the mighty king, his
hand on his sword;
"Else remember the son of Cumal in the field;
Feeble
is thy phantom, great is my strength.
Have I moved my step from the
mountain
To thy halls on the peaceful plain?
Has my powerful spear
met
In the skyey robe the voice
Of the dark spirit of the circle of
Lodin?
Why raise thy brow in gloom?
Why brandishest thy spear on
high?
Little I fear thy threats, feeble one,
I fled not from hosts on the
field,
Why should flee from the seed of the wind,
The mighty hero,
Morven's king?
Flee he will not, well he knows
The weakness of thy arm in
battle."
"Flee to thy land," replied the Form,
"Flee on the black wind -
away!
The blast is in the hollow of my hand - .
Mine are the course and
wrestling of the storm,
The king of Soroch is my son,
He bends on the
hill to my shad;
His battle is at Carrick of the hundred braves,
And safe
he shall win the victory -
"Flee to thy own land, son of Cumal,
Else
feel to thy sorrow my rage."
High he lifted his dark spear,
Fiercely he
bent his lofty head.
Against him Fingal advanced amain, [a-fire,]
His
bright-blue sword in hand,
Son of Loon - the swartest cheek'd.
The light
of the steel passed through the Spirit,
The gloomy and feeble spirit of
death.
Shapeless he fell, yonder [opposite]
On the wind of the black
cairns, as smoke
Which a young one breaks, rod in hand,
At the hearth of
smoke and struggle,
The Form of Lodin shriek'd in the hill,
Gathering
himself in the wind,
Innis-Tore heard the sound,
The waves with terror
stay their courses:
Up rose the braves of Cumal's son.
Each hand grasp'd
a spear on the hill,
"Where is he?" they cried with frowning rage,
Each
armour sounding on its lord.
EXTRACTS FROM FINGAL
Cuchullin sat by the wall of
Tura,
In the shade of the tree of sounding leaf;
His spear leant against
the cave-pierced rock,
His great shield by his side on the grast
The
thoughts of the chief were on Cairber.
A hero he had slain in battle
fierce,
When the watcher of the ocean cam;
The swift son of Fili with the
bounding step.
"Arise, Cuchullin, arise,
I see a gallant fleet from the
north,
Swift bestir thee, chief of the banquet,
Great is Swaran,
numerous is his host !"
"Moran, answered the dauntless blue-eyed,
Weak
and trembling wert thou aye;
In thy fear the foe is numerous;
Son of Fill
is Fingal,
High champion of the dark-mottled hills."
"I saw their
leader," answer'd Moran;
"Like to a rock was the chief,
His spear as a
fir on the rocky mountain,
His shield as the rising moon:
He sat on a
rock on the shore
As the mist yonder on the hill."
"Many," I said, "chief
of the strangers,
Are the champions that rise with thee,
Strong warriors,
of hardiest stroke,
And keenest brand in the play of men.
But more
numerous and valiant are the braves
That surround the windy
Turn."
Answer'd the brave, as a wave on a rock,
"Who in this land is like
me?
Thy heroes could not stand in my presence;
But low they should fall
beneath my hand.
Who is he would meet my sword?
Save Fingal, king of
stormy Selma.
Once on a day we grasp'd each other
On Melmor, and fierce
was our strife.
The woo'l fell in the unyielding fight,
The streams
turn'd aside, and trembled the cairn.
Three days the strife was
renew'd,
Warriors bravest in battle trembled.
On the fourth, said Fingal
the king -
'The ocean chief fell in the glen.'
He fell not, was my
answer."
Let Cuchullin yield to the chief,
Who is stronger than the
mountain storm.
I, said the dauntless blue-eyed,
Yield I shall not to
living man.
Cuchullin shall, resolute as he, be
Great in battle, or
stainless in death.
Son of Fiji, seize my spear,
Strike the joyless and
gloomy shield of Sema;
Thou shalt see it high on the wall of spears;
No
omen of peace was its sound.
Swift, son of Fill, strike the shield of
Sema,
Summon my heroes from forest and copse.
Swift he struck the spotted
[bossy] shield,
Each copse and forest answer'd.
Pauseless, the alarm
sped through the grove;
The deer and the roe started on the heath:
Curtha leap'd from the sounding rock:
Connal of the doughtiest spear
bestirr'd himself
Favi left the hind in the chase:
Crugeal return'd to
festive Jura.
Ronan, hark to the shield of the battles,
Cuchullin's land
signal, Cluthair,
Calmar, hither come from the ocean:
With thy arms
hither come, O Luthair.
Son of Finn, thou strong warrior, arise;
Cairber
[come] from the voiced Cromlec;
Bend thy knee, free-hearted Fichi.
Cormag
[come] from streamy Lena.
Coilte, stretch thy splendid side,
[limbs]
Swift, travelling from Mora,
Thy side, whiter than the foam,
spread
On the storm-vex'd sea.
Then might be seen the heroes of high
deeds
Descending each from his own winding glen,
Each soul burning with
remembrance
Of the battles of the time gone by of old:
Their eyes
kindling and searching fiercely round
For the dark foe of Innisfail.
Each
mighty hand on the hilt of each brand
Blazing, lightning flashing [lit, streaming bright, like the sun]
from their
armour.
As pours a stream from a wild glen
Descend the braves from the
sides of the mountains,
Each chief In the mail of his illustrious
sire.
His stern, dark-visaged warriors behind,
As the gatherings of the
waters of the mountains [i.e., rain clouds]
Around the lightning of the
sky.
At every step was heard the sound of arms
And the bark of hounds,
high gambling
Songs were humm'd in every mouth,
Each dauntless hero eager
for the strife.
Cromlec shook on the face of the mountain;
As they
march'd athwart the heath:
They stood on the inclines of the hills,
As
the hoary mist of autumn
That closes round the sloping mountain,
And
binds its forehead to the sky.
FINGAL, Lib. i., line 1-100
As rushes a gray stream in foam
From
the iron front of lofty Cromla;
The torrent travelling the
mountains,
While dark night enwraps the cairns:
And the cold shades of
paly hue
Look down from the skirts of the showers;
So fierce, so great,
so pitiless, so swift
Advanced the hardy seed of Erin.
Their chief, as
the great boar [whale] of the ocean,
Drawing the cold waves behind
him;
Pouring his strength as billows; [or in billows,]
'Neath his travel
shakes the shore.
The seed of Lochlin heard the sound,
As the cold
roaring stream of winter;
Swift Swaran struck his shield,
And spoke to
the son of Am beside him -
I hear a sound on the side of the
mountains,
As the evening fly of slow movements;
It is the gallant Sons
of Erin,
Or a storm in the distant woodland.
Like Gonnal is the
sound,
Ere wakes the tempest in the high seas:
Hie thee to the heights,
son of Am,
Survey each copse and hill-side.
He went, and soon return'd in
terror,
His eye fix'd and wild in his head;
His heart beat quick against
his side,
His speech was feeble, slow, and broken.
"Arise! thou Lord of
the waves,
Mighty chief of the dark shields;
I see the stream of the
dark-wooded mountains,
I see the seed of ES and their lord.
A chariot!
the mighty chariot of battle
Advances with death across the plain;
The
well-made swift chariot of Cuchullin,
The great son of Sema, mighty in
danger.
Behind, it bends down like a wave,
Or the mist on the copse of
the sharp rocks;
The light of stones of power [gems] is round,
As the sea
round a bark at night
Of polish'd yew is the beam,
The seats within are
of smoothest bone;
The dwelling-place of spears it is,
Of shields, of
swords, and of mighty men.
By the right side of the great chariot
Is seen
the snorting, high-mettled steed;
The high-maned, broad,
black-chested,
High-leaping, strong son of the hills.
Loud and resounding
is his hoof:
The spread of his frontlets above
Is like mist on the haunts
of the elk;
Bright was his aspect, and swift his going,
Sith-fadda
[Long-stride] is his name.
By the other side of the chariot
Is the
arch-neck'd, snorting,
Narrow-maned, high-mettled, strong-hoofed,
Swift-footed, wide-nostril'd steed of the mountains,
Du-sron-geal is
the name of the horse.
Full a thousand slender thongs
Bind the chariot on
high;
The bright steel bits of the bridles
Are cover'd with foam in their
cheeks:
Blazing stones, sparkling bright,
Bend aloft on the manes of the
steeds - .
Of the steeds that are like the mist on the mountains,
Bearing
the chief to his renown.
Wilder than the deer is their aspect,
Powerful
as the eagle their strength;
Their sound is like the savage winter
On
Gormal, when cover'd with snow.
In the chariot is seen the chief,
The
mighty son of the keenest arms -
Cuchullin of the blue-spotted
shields.
The son of Sema, renown'd in song,
His cheek is as the polish'd
yew;
His strong eye is spreading high,
'Neath his dark-arch'd and slender
brow.
His yellow hair, as a blaze round his head,
Pouring [waving] round
the splendid face of the hero,
While he draws from behind his
spear.
Flee, great chief of ships!
Flee from the hero who comes
As a
storm from the glen of streams."
"When did I flee? said the king of
ships;
When fled Swaran of the dark shields?
When did I shun the
threatening danger,
Son of Arn - aye feeble?
I have borne the tempest of
the skies,
On the bellowing sea of inclement showers;
The sternest
battles I have borne,
Why should I flee from the conflict,
Son of Arn, of
feeblest hand?
Arise my thousands on the field,
Pour as the roar of the
ocean,
When bends the blast from the cloud,
Let gallant Lochlin rise
around my steel.
Be ye like rocks on the edge of the ocean,
In my own
land of oars,
That lifts the pine aloft
To battle with the tempests of
the sky."
As the sound of autumn from two mountains
Towards each other
drew the braves,
As a mighty stream from two rocks,
Flowing, pouring on
the plain;
Sounding dark, fierce in battle,
Met Lochlin and
Innesfail.
Chief mix'd his strokes with chief,
Man contended with
man,
Steel clang'd on steel,
Helmets are cleft on high,
Blood is
pouring fast around,
The bow-string twanges on the polish'd yew;
Arrows
traverse the sky,
Spears strike and fall,
As the bolt of night on the
mountains,
As the bellowing seething of the ocean,
When advance the waves
on high;
Like the torrent behind the mountains
Was the gloom and din of
the conflict.
Though the hundred bards of Cormag were there,
And their
songs described the combat,
Scarcely could they tell
Of each headless
corpse and death -
Many were the deaths of men and chiefs,
Their blood
spreading on the plain.
Mourn, ye race of songs,
For Sith-alum the child
of the braves:
Evir, heave thy snowy breast
For gallant Ardan of fiercest
look.
As two roes that fall from the mountain,
[They fell] 'neath the
hand of dark-shielded Swaran;
While dauntless he moved before his
thousands,
As a spirit in the cloudy sky,
A spirit that sits in
cloud.
Half made by mist from the north,
When bends the lifeless mariner
A look of woe on the summit of the waves.
Nor slept thy hand by the
side,
Chief of the isle of gentle showers;
Thy brand was in the path of
spoils,
As lightning flashing thick,
When the people fall in the
glen,
And the face of the mountain, as in a blaze,
[Or is seething white
with torrents,]
Du-sron-geal snorted over brave men,
Sith-fadda wash'd
his hoof in blood,
Behind him lay full many a hero,
As a wood on Cromla
of the floods,
When moves the blast through the heath,
With the airy
ghosts of night
Weep on the sounding rock,
Noble daughter of the isle of
ships
Bend thy splendid countenance over the sea,
Thou lovelier than a
spirit in the woods,
Rising up soft and slow
As a sunbeam in the silence
of the hills.
He fell, soon he fell in the battle,
The youth of thy love
is pale,
'Neath the sword of great Cuchullin.
What has made thee so wan
and cold?
He will move no more to hardy deeds,
He will not strike the
high blood of heroes;
Trenar, youthful Trena has fallen in death;
Maid,
thou shalt see thy love no more for ever.
his hounds howl piteously
At
home, ns they see his ghost,
His bow is unstrung and bare;
His
death-sound is on the knoll,
[i.e., on the knoll he utters his
death-groan.]
As roll a thousand waves to the shore,
So under Swaran
advanced the foe;
As meets the shore a thousand waves,
So Erin met the
king of ships.
Then arose the voices of death,
The sound of battle-shout
and clang of arms,
Shields and mail lay broken on the ground.
A sword
like lightning was high in each hand,
The noise of battle rose from wing to
wing,
Of battle, roaring, bloody, hot,
As a hundred hammers striking
wild,
By turns, showers of red sparks from the glowing forge,
Who are
those on hilly Sena?
Who of darkest and fiercest gloom?
Who likest to the
murkiest cloud?
The sword of each thief as fire on the waves,
The face of
the woods is troubled,
The wave-beat rock shakes on the shore.
Who, but
Swaran of ships
And the chief of Erin, renown'd in song?
The eye of the
hosts beholds aside
The encounter of the mighty heroes.
Night descended
on the combat of the braves,
And hid the undecided conflict.
FINGAL,
Book i., 313-502.
| The End |
