The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #9608   Message #139340
Posted By: Stewie
21-Nov-99 - 10:00 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Ballad of Glencoe / Massacre of Glencoe
Subject: RE: Ballad of Glencoe
Here's an extract from a fine 19th century poem on the subject. It may be of interest to some:

THE WIDOW OF GLENCOE (extract)

Do not lift him from the bracken,
Leave him lying where he fell -
Better bier ye cannot fashion:
None beseems him half so well
As the bare and broken heather,
And the hard and trampled sod,
Whence his angry soul ascended
To the judgment seat of God!

……………

Tremblingly we scooped the covering
From each kindred victim's head,
And the living lips were burning
On the cold ones of the dead.
And I left them with their dearest –
Dearest charge had every one –
Left the maiden with her lover,
Left the mother with her son.
I alone of all was mateless –
Far more wretched I than they,
For the snow would not discover
Where my Lord and husband lay.
But I wandered up the valley,
Till I found him lying low,
With the gash upon his bosom
And the frown upon his brow –
Till I found him lying murdered,
Where he wooed me long ago!

Women's weakness shall not shame me
Why should I have tears to shed?
Could I rain them down like water,
O my hero, on thy head –
Could the cry of lamentation
Wake thee from thy silent sleep,
Could it set thy heart a-throbbing,
It were mine to wail and weep!
But I will not waste my sorrow,
Lest the Campbell women say
That the daughters of Clanranald
Are as weak and frail as they.

………………..

Other eyes than mine shall glisten, Other hearts be rent in twain, Ere the heathbells on thy hillock Wither in the autumn rain. Then I'll seek thee where thou sleepest, And I'll veil my weary head, Praying for a place beside thee, Dearer than my bridal bed; And I'll give thee tears, my husband! If tears remain to me, When the widows of the foeman Cry the coronach for thee!

(William Aytoun 1813-65)