A POEM AND A FLAG.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1687, 1 March 1913, Page 9

A POEM AND A FLAG.

"THE CANADIAN BOAT SONG."

[Contributed.]

Last Saturday I was one of tlie spectators when tho Royal Scottish Standard —which, somcono may say should bo called' tho Royal Standard of Scotland—was flung out by Lady Liverpool to the ceaseless winds of Roseneath llill. It was a happy little ceremony, with the bright children, the Boy Scouts, tho pleasant people, and llio sonsio sunlight and air of a- good late-summer day. Many more beside myself must have thought of tho fact that the Rosneath in Scotland on whose behalf the flag came for its exile in the Antipodean breezes was probably on that very afternoon cold and bleak, a late snow reluctantly thawing undef steely skies, and tho winter red of an. early sunset as the only mitigation in colour that Nature could conoede. There was Scotland, in winter; here was Oriental Bay in summer, not vory far from the South Pole, but yet bathed in sunlight, with its grasses grey and brown from summer's heat ana summer's breezes. Who could have felt surprised when, in his charming little speech, Mr. Bell felt himself driven to quote that finest of all chansons d'exil, ' The Canadian Boat j Song"P I knew it was coming while it was three sentences off, and I listened so carefully that I can here transcribe Mr. Cell's quotation of the famous second verse: | Though from the lone shieling and tho misty island Mountains divide us, and a waste of seas; Tet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland, And in our dreams we see the Hebrides. Like everybody else who has attempted, even with libraries at his elbow, and with an intention of correction, to quote this stanza, Mr. Bell misquoted. He misquoted badly (starting off, indeed, with a quite unauthorised "though") but his , crowning misquotation was new and- very pleasant. At odd intervals The Dominion has printed sufficient concerning this fine old poem t: keep that Wellington public which cares about ithcse things somewhere near abreast of tlie eternal controversy over tho "Boat Song." To no anonymous poem in the language, to few poems at all in the language, lias there been paid so wonderful a compliment of controversy as to this poem. There are o few English dailies and weeklies which I read regularly and pretty carefully, and it is a dark month when I find a truce in the war over this poem—over its authorship, its first publication, and, above all, over tho proper text of the second verse, which Mr. Bell, being mortal, could not quote correctly, any more than. I can be sure of doing. Three or four years njfo, when the quieter minds of. Great. Britain were glad to turn aside from the 1909 Budget and tho clamour about it to an intenser interest than usual in the "Boat Song," the brilliant writer of the "Books and Bookmen" column in the "Manchester Guardian" set himself out to give the proper "text. He could do no more than that, so he said, but he could do that. Alas, he made the first line read:

From tho FAR Bhleling of the mlaty island On the following Saturday he confessed that nobody, even with all the resources of civilisation, could avoid falling into error. If ho managed to write "the lono shieling," he would be sure to 6ay, for tho third line

Yet still the blood Is WAEM, the heart is Highland. Mr. Bell got this line right. Tho blood is not "warm", as anyone with a grain of feeling can see it must be. But Mr. Bell made a fourth line of hi 3 own. Personally, I think that his

And in our droams we eee the Hebridesis a sweeter thing than the authentic I And wo in dreams behold the Hebrides. "Belioid," certainly gives a weight and largeness to the image—it figures a dream in which the exile 6ees suddenly, suddenly, the grey lost coasts of Scotland. But this is a matter of ta6te. A couple of years ago-the full text of the poem was printed in The Dominion. There was an error in the version printed: "the blood is warm" instead of the blood is strong." Here, then, if it is mortally possible to be is the oorrect text:

Listen to me, as when ye heard our father Sing long ago the song of other shores; I/isten to me, and then in chorus gather All your deep voices as ye pull your oars. Fair these broad mead6—those hoary woods are gTand; But we are exiles from our father's . land. ■

From tho lons shieling of the misty island, • Mountains divide us and a waste of . seas; Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland, And we in dreams behold the Hebrides.

We ne'er shall tread the fancy-haunted valley, Whore 'tween the dark hills creeps the small, clear stream; In arms around the patriot banner rally, Nor see the moon on royal tombstones gleam.

When the bold kindred in the time long vanished Conquered the soil and fortified tte keep. No 6eer foretold the children would bo banish'd That a degenerate lord might boast his sheep.

Come, foreign rage; let discord burst in slaughter, Oh, then for clansmen true and 6tern claymore'; Tho hearts that would have given theil blood like water Beat heavily beyond the Atlantic's roaJ. Fair these broad meads—these hoary woods are grand; But we are exiles from our father's land. As to the authorship, it is shrouded in mists" as thick as those which wreathed tho droams of the exile. "Christopher North," the famous Professor Wilson, has until lately been accounted the author. As it appeared in "Blackwood's" for September, 1829, the eong was proceded by "Christopher North's" remark; "I have a letter from a friend in Upper Canada; ho has sent mo a translation of ono of the boatmen's ditties." The Blackwoods were for some timo inclined to believe that the author of the song was John Gait, the author of "Annals of the Parish." Mr. Noil Munro discredited this idea on the ground that there was nothing of the Celt in Gait. The other day, however—so lately that tho news came only by the mail of this week—there was unearthed by Mr. Hector Maopherson a letter of Gait's addressed from Canada to Dr. Moir, of Musselburph (the "Delta" of "Blackwood's"), describing how he had been rowed by eight boatmen down tho St._ Lawrence. This is anything but conclusive evidence; yet it suggests strongly that Gait could have had the means of writing the poem.

Perhaps, one can fancy, the controversy will still be going on long after the beautiful little flag on Roseneath Hill has been whipped into tatters by the northerly winds that blew with an everlasting and infinite indifference to Sootland and to the links that, bind the Hebrides to hearts at tho ends of the world.