we have ventured, after the illustrious person
who has done so much honour to the bard by his comments and selections,
we have attempted to draw out a little more of the peculiar character of
the poet's genius.

[87] Songs and Poems of Robert Mackay, p. 38. (Inverness, 1829. 8vo.)

[88] The Rev. Dr Mackintosh Mackay, successively minister of Laggan and
Dunoon, now a clergyman in Australia.

[89] _Quarterly Review_, vol. xlv., April 1831.

THE SONG OF WINTER.

This is selected as a specimen of Mackay's descriptive poetry. It
is in a style peculiar to the Highlands, where description runs so
entirely into epithets and adjectives, as to render recitation
breathless, and translation hopeless. Here, while we have retained
the imagery, we have been unable to find room, or rather rhyme, for
one half of the epithets in the original. The power of alliterative
harmony in the original song is extraordinary.

I.

At waking so early
Was snow on the Ben,
And, the glen of the hill in,
The storm-drift so chilling
The linnet was stilling,
That couch'd in its den;
And poor robin was shrilling
In sorrow his strain.

II.

Every grove was expecting
Its leaf shed in gloom;
The sap it is draining,
Down rootwards 'tis straining,
And the bark it is waning
As dry as the tomb,
And the blackbird at morning
Is shrieking his doom.

III.

Ceases thriving, the knotted,
The stunted birk-shaw;[90]
While the rough wind is blowing,
And the drift of the snowing
Is shaking, o'erthrowing,
The copse on the law.

IV.

'Tis the season when nature
Is all in the sere,
When her snow-showers are hailing,
Her rain-sleet assailing,
Her mountain winds wailing,
Her rime-frosts severe.

V.

'Tis the season of leanness,
Unkindness, and chill;
Its whistle is ringing,
An iciness bringing,
Where the brown leaves are clinging
In helplessness, still,
And the snow-rush is delving
With furrows the hill.

VI.

The sun is in hiding,
Or frozen its beam
On the peaks where he lingers,
On the glens, where the singers,[91]
With their bills and small fingers
Are raking the