THE CANADIAN BOAT SONG.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 758, 5 March 1910, Page 9

THE CANADIAN BOAT SONG.

[To the Editor.] Sir,—l recently read in your literary column that exquisitely beautiful piccc of poetry,'"The Canadian Boat. Song," which must certainly hold—although written in Gaelic—a high and assured position in the classical literature of'the Anglo-Celtic race. I have frequently called the attention of my countrymen, when addressing Caledonian societies,. to this beautiful song, and particularly to the second verse, in which the feeling of expatriated Scottish Celts finds inimitably pathetic and felicitous in expression. I was more than pleased when recently I read that at a meeting ill Edinburgh Lord Rosebory gave expression to the belief that of its kind it was the most beautiful verse in tho English language. It is alleged in your columns —I have not your issue by me— that its author is unknown, but that it has been attributed to Christopher North. When at one time sailing on the Great Lakes of North America, I came into intimate contact with many Canadian Highlanders, and amongst them I endeavoured to obtain information in reference to the.question of authorship, but whilst unable to discover anything sufficiently definite or specific, I arrived at the conclusion that it was most probably— indeed, I might say certainly—written in the Gaelic language in Nova Scotia, in (lie very early part of the last century. I have heard it sung both in English ilnd Gaelic, and thdsb who aro familiar with Hie latter tongue allege, that it has suf-, fered much in translation. I read many years ago that it was first translated by Lord Eglinton in 1820. As I read tho song in your columns .it recalled to me most vividly a night which many years ago I spent under the trees of the pine forest ivith somo of those splendid Canadian Highlanders, and what an inimitable pathos they threw into the rendering of this famous song. What noble, loyal fellows were those with whom J spent Unit well-rcmembcrcd night—passionately atattachcd to their native Canada and still apparently equally devoted to Albyn, (he cradle of their race. As !• spoke to them of tile history and traditions of a common ancestry, 1 could notice the tears running down the cheeks of some of these line young fellows, whoso grandfathers even had never seen tho country from which they had sprung. But I had upon that occasion au ideal, .emotional audience. Why are tho Scottish Cells of Australasia so different to their kindred in Canada? But that is another auestioa.

Your rendering of the second verse differs from that which I so frequently heard sung in Canada, and .these alterations do not-appear as bring felicitous to mo, although-it can scarcely be said that tiiey in any appreciable degree alter the flense of the son;;. As 1 may fairly aspume that many of your readers who possess literary tastes 'might wish to see che second verse as I learned it in Canada,'its birth-place,'l give it here: "l°rom the grny shieling and the' misty island ' ■ • Mountains divide us and' a waste of seas j Hut still our hearts arc true, our hearts are Highland, As in dreams behold the Hebrides.""

Everything; at present appears to point to the conclusion that we are standing upon the very threshold of great events; of events which are even now "casting their shadows before." .And as -has been recently pointed out at Home, what this Umpire requires to-day is that spirit of patriotism, of attachment to country and raco which finds expression in the lines of this song, the spirit of which Marshal Macdonald—"the faithful Macdonald, Napoleon's most trusted Marshal—was animated when he took from the deserted hearths of his ancestors in the wild Hebrides earth to be. placed with him in his grave in sunny France.—l am, etc., E. G. BRUCE. Ngaruru, February 20.