In the third verse he says it for all to understand :
By Oppression’s woes and pains!
By your Sons in servile chains!
We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall be free!
Scotland’s poets have had their work cut out for them! If the
children of Israel had found it difficult to "sing the Lord’s Song in a strange
land", having been carried into captivity, Scotland’s children had to sing the
songs of freedom in their own land where they found themselves so often deprived of their
own natural forms of expression, or right of decision- making over the land which they
worked and the seas and lochs which they fished. Poets such as Walter Scott sought to be
regarded as National Bard, but sought it through gaining favor with the very people who
were the foreign oppressors. He wrote some very good verse here and there, but it was
designed for those who saw Scotland to be their romantic playground, where a wealthy
Southron could play the great chief and wear the kilt for grouse hunting on the moor, and
while the educated Scot could read Sir Walter’s novels and see great value in the
some of the verse, the true nature of the Scot whose job it was to act as guide, stalker,
gillie , kitchen maid or piper, was never really too much thought about or even approached
in his work(although he did develop his characters in the novels from the somewhat
peculiarities of this or that individual).Scott’s dream to become National Bard never
bore fruit. Parliament may grant the Lordship of the Isles to a member of the Royal
family, but the folk of the Isles know that there can be only one ""Lord of the
Isles": MacDonald of MacDonald and the Isles. So too will the people will choose
their own "National Bard", thank you very much! As Burns said and wrote :
Ye see yon birkie ca’d ‘a lord’,
Wha struts an’ stares an’ a’ that ;
Tho’ hundreds worship at his word,
He’s but a coof for a’ that :
For a’ that, an’ a’ that ;
His ribband, star, an’ a’that ;
The man o’ independent mind
He looks an’ laughs at a’ that.
Burns reminds us all that there is something to be said for having a
good family, a house open to visitors, a gathering of folk now and then to have a pint of
ale or a dram of good whisky; to make fun of one another and to simply act silly once in
awhile. He has given us wonderfully tender love songs, yet he has given us more than the
occasional glimpse of flighty, fickle girls and faithless lads, of self-righteousness and
the downright shattering of the commandments. Burns is the voice of Scotland for his time,
and for our time as well, in many ways. Even so, All poets speak for their times. The
poet, being that rare individual who picks up the cast off words and phrases of everyday
life, and who can ,with ingenuity and inspiration give the world a new reality as a result
of his/her creativity, is the one who holds a mirror before each of us as well as
enshrining our national character for future generations. Scotland has given birth to a
tremendous number of poets. Some write in Scots, some in English and some others in
Gaelic.
It would be a mistake for anyone who is interested in Scottish poetry
to omit the Gaelic poets. Most of their works are translated into English, often books
being found with Gaelic text on one side with the English translation on the facing page.
In the cases of the contemporary Gaelic poets we find ourselves to be especially
fortunate, in that they are usually fluent in both languages, so that we have, not only
translations, but a particular poet's having written the same poem "twice", once
in the Gaidhlig, once in English! A great example of this fluency in both languages is to
be found in the works of Sorley MacLean, who grew up in the Western Isles, started writing
as a student in Edinburgh,first in English, later in his native Gaelic.Derek Thompson
could easily be claimed by the English-speaker as well as that person who ' has the
Ghaidhlig'.For a language which is said to be dying, Gaelic seems to have been cropping up
in Scottish poems and literature to an amazing degree in the 20th century. In a
recently published book," An Tuil, which came out to the public in 1999. An
anthology of 20th century Gaelic poetry in Gaelic with English translations, we find
mirrored for us the hopes, dreams, despair and moments of happiness, captured by the
'word-smiths' of our own time. For those who think that Gaelic poetry concerns itself only
with the heroic tradition of ages past, this is a wonderful view of Scotland's response to
the problems which never seem to go away: Emmigration, unemployment,landlords, not to
mention two world wars, and through them, the loss of her brave young men. In one of his
poems: "I am sorry, anguished , sorry", Donald MacDonald of North Uist
tells us :
" Tha mi duilich,cianail, duilich /Tha mi duilich, s cianail tha mi
Bhona chunna mi le'm shuilean / Sealladh tursach mo chuid bhraithrean.
Gillean Gaidhealtachd na h-Alba, / Feadhainn tha marbh is nan claraibh
Anns an fhasaich 's iat nan sineadh , / An neart 's an cli air am
fagail."
"( I am sorry, anguished, sorry, / I am sorry and so anguished,
Since I saw with my eyes / The sad sight of my brothers.
The boys of the Scottish Higlands, / Some who're dead and blown to pieces,
Prostrate in the wilderness / Their energy and strength having left them .)"
We see also, echoed from what we thought was
passed, the misery of folk cleared from the land; that the clearances are with us
yet..and we see that the ancient Celtic satire lives on. In his poem, Oran don Oighre (A
Song to the Heir), George Campbell Hay says:
"......... Gum meal thu fhein t'oighreachd fharsaing
Far nach Fhaic thu fear a 'tamh
Gach tobhta falamh 's fardach fhuaraidh
Is goirtean luachrach gun fhas;
Seall-a-mach, a thriath,a d'uinneag
Air a bailtean cruinn sa ghleann
Far nach cluinnear guth no gaire-----
Na laraichean gun mhuinntear annt'. "
( May you enjoy your enormous inheritence/Where never a man alive will you see/Each
empty ruin and deserted dwelling house/And a little enclosure where nothing but rushes
grow/; Take a look, Laird, out of your window/At the townships huddled in the glen/Where
no voice or laughter is ever heard-/Ruined remains with no inhabitants. )
It has been said that "to be
a Gael is to never be far from tears". But why stop with the Gael? All of Scotland's
children have never been far from tears, nor are they the tears of self-pity. They are
just as apt to be tears of those great moments of joy, for the Scot has learned to cherish
every bit of happiness which comes his way. They are also tears of frustration,of gritting
the teeth and forging onward , or tears of an inner anger so strong that it too must
be battled. If, as some great historians of the arts would have us believe, a certain
pathos must be present for great art to ensue, then there is no shortage of that
raw material !. The first poetry in Scots emerges in the 1300's (was there even a language
called "English" at that same time ?), and the earliest Scots Gaelic poetry
comes to us from sometime around the 9th century : the "Albanic Duan".
It might be safe to conclude that Scotland's poets are well enough grounded in
their craft to be able to hold their own without foreign guidance.
Following are some sites and lists which Siol
nan Gaidheal submits as a sampling of Scotland's Long
tradition in Poetry..................
Works in
Gaelic..... Ancient Poetry:
Albanic
Duan ( 9th century?) www.gaelicscottish.com/docs/albanic.htm
Ossianic Collections
(Early, Heroic) www.gaelicscottish.com/docs/ossianic.htm
Modern Gaelic
Poetry :
Iain Crichton Smith( Iain Mac a' Ghobhainn)
www.gaelicscottish.com/docs/iainchrichtonPoetry.htm
Sorley MacLean ( Biography) www.gaelicscottish.com/docs/sorley.htm
Meg Bateman (Women's issues) www.gaelicscottish.com/docs/megBateman.htm
Gaelic Poetry, 1550-1900, William
Watson ; An Comunn Gaidhealach
Poems and Songs of Sileas MacDonald , C.O'baoill;
Scottish Gaelic Texts Society, Edinburgh
The Blind Harper (Roderick Morrison) ;
Scottish Gaelic Texts Society, Edinburgh
An Tuil- an Anthology of 20th Centurty Gaelic
Poetry , R. Black Polygon 1999
Songs and Poetry of Robb Donn , Morrison ; John
GrantPublishers , Edinburgh
From Wood to Ridge, Collected Poems of Sorley MacLean
Works in Scots or English :
Selected Poetry of Robert Burns (24 Poems on-line): www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/authors/burns.html
Robert Burns, Poetry
www.sc.edu/library/spcoll/britlit/burns/burns.html
Selected Poetry of Sir Walter Scott (16 Poems on-line): www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/authors/scott.html
Scottish Poets
www.abacus-art.co.uk/poet1.html
Young Scottish Poetry Library www.spl.org.uk/youngpeople/education/bibliography.htm
From the Siol nan Gaidheal Archives: Derek Thompson
Some Books to watch for:
The Bruce, by John Barbour;... Mercat Press
Poems of William Dunbar ;....Mercat Press
Collected Poems of Edwin Muir ;.......Mercat Press
Collected Poems of Norman MacCaig ;....Chatto & Windus
Selected Poems of Hugh MacDiarmid ;...Penguin
Penguin Book of Scottish Verse, Crawford and Imlah ;..Alan Lane/Penguin
A Scottish Reader, ed. by Gordon Jarvie ;BlackStaff Press 1993
Faber Book of 20th Century Scottish Poetry ,ed. by D. Dunn ; Faber,2000
Scottish Ballads, ed. by Emily Lyle ;...Canongate,1994
NEW!!
A Must-See!
Hugh MacDiarmid - A Drunk Man looks at the Thistle
http://www.yfinnie.demon.co.uk/contents4/thistle1.html
There is an on-line "TIMELINE" of Scottish Poets and
Writers from 1320 to the present.........www.slainte.org.uk/Scotauth/scautime.htm
POETRY