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Maidens ! softly touch the clàrsach,
Sing your sweetest songs tu-day,
rouse the magic chanter,
Pipers !
Loud Clan Coila's gathering play,
Clansmen ! pledge with Highland honours,
Highland cheer, our heroe's name,
Till the Highland hills re-echo
Back again our Hector's fame.
Ciad's ciad mile fàilte.
Miss Jessie MacLachlan, tlie famous Scottish
vocalist, sang the above song at the London
banquet given to Colonel Hector MacDonald,
which was set to music by Mr Colin MacAlpin.
Miss MacDonell's latest poem is " The mother
land," extending to sixty-three lines, which has
just been published, 1899, in the year book of the
MacDonald Society. It breathes the same fervent
patriotism so characteristic of many of her
l)oems. The following quotation will give an
idea of the poem as a wliole.
'• THE MOTHER LAND."
Upon thy kindly breast once more,
Heart to my heart., cheek to thy cheek, red lips
Of honey, scented heather bell, and myrtle sweet
and wild.
Keening soft lullabys from out their mossy depths,
In the sound of the swift brown burns, and the
winds
Lilting under the feathery fronds and the clustering
leaves.
Trailing away down the rocky banks where the
berries grow.
O ! but thou givest rest sweet mother land !
With thy cool delicate airs, and the songs.
The old time songs of the hills, DearghuU and
Naoise sang
In their wattle hut by the side of the Etive loch,
Cucluillin sang in the far-off isle of the mists,
And Ossian sang away there by the fairy haunts of
Treig,
Songs of the perfect life in the land of Atlantis out
by the setting sun.
Miss MacDonell's last poem, published in the
October number of the " Celtic Montidy," shows
no falling off on her previous productions. It is
in praise of the Paladin of the Soudan, " Major-
General Sir Archibald Hunter, K.C.M.G., who so
distinguished himself in the recent Soudan campaign,
and wlio gained for himself not only the
reputation of being one of the bravest of the
l)rave, but a far higher and rarer quality, that
of chivalry—by his mother's side a Graham', showing'
that he follows in the footsteps of those two
knightly Paladins of his clan, Montrose and
Bonnie Dundee." The first and last stanzas are
quoted to give an idea of the poem.
Nor yet the skill to sing thy praise
Till some more powerful hand shall wake
His tuneful lyre with polished phrase.
Some bard from out thine own clan Graeme,
So far renowned in Scottish fame.
His clansmen's deeds in verse p jrtrays,
A sister Scot her right may claim.
5 Worthy of that brave clan art thou
That owned a Clavers, a Montrose,
Beneath their knightly banners furled
Thy name shall also find repose.
Nor courtly ways with these are sped,
Nor chivalry with these are dead.
So long as Scottish names disclose
One with such knightly virtues bred.
Our bardess is still singing away, and long may
she continue to do so, a wish which, I am sure,
the whole clan Donald will heartily endorse.
" Gu m a fada beo thu 's ceo dheth do thighe."
JOSEPHINA MAIM MACDONELL.
Another member of tliis talented family, Miss
Josephina Màiri MacDonell, deserves mention
here. Besides having composed the following
poems— " The Highland Soldier's Keturn," " Cry
from liochaber pleading for Gaelic," " My Sprig
of White Heather," and "A Message to the
Braes of Lochaber," she contributed two articles
on Prince Kupert, one in the Celtic Monthly,
illustrated with his portrait, and one in the Clan
Donald Journal, when he came over for the
Queen's Jubilee. The London letter to the same
journal, and the ladies' column for the London
Scot, including nitraerous illustrations, amongst
others one of Duneveg Castle in Islay, for Eraser
Macintosh's " Last MacDonalds of Isla " " ; The
Highland Brigade," for J. MacKay, Hereford,
contributed to the Celtic Monthly ; " The 79tli
Highlanders at Waterloo " ; " The 72nd at the
same battle"; "The Scots Guard at La Haye
Sainte (Waterloo) or Hugoumont," " The Advance
of Napoleon's Guard," " Wellington andsomeof the
Highland Soldiers after Waterloo," " An Illustra-
tion for a Fairy Legend " by MacKay of the
Gaelic Society, Inverness, also in the Celtic
Monthly"; three battle scenes, viz., " Harlaw,"
" Bannockburn," and " Inverlochy," for tiie
MacDonald History now in the press, several
coats of arms, seals, and documents for the same
work. For the " Lords of Lochaber " that partly
came out in the Celtic Monthly," she also did
;