The Tragedy of the Mackays.

“Strathnaver No More” is a tangi poem that embodies the great sorrow of the Clan Mackay and their kin. Stern, sharp, indignant, it is a terrific indictment of the clearances that reft the land from the people and accounted them less than the aeer that roamed the hills:—

“O the shadow's on the glen and the gloom is on the heart
Of the far-wandered men of Strathnaver,
When they look across the sea to the lost Land of Reay
And count the bitter fee for Strath-naver!
O if blood had been the price, then Mackay were lord to-day:
Blood-bought, ay, and thrice, ran the Naver
From the days of Angus Du when the Aberach arose
And the White Banner flew by the Naver!
And if love had bought it clear, the Mackays were thick as grain Where wild run the deer in Strathnaver.
It was washed in tears as milk where the hearts of bold Mackay Wound like the silk round Strathnaver.

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It was gold of London town, it was foreign dross that dulled The sea-bright crown of the Naver; ‘This by English gold and gun and the lisping English tongue That the land lies undone by the Naver.

For the sea has opened wide her gates to bear away The flower and the pride of Strathnaver; And the songs of Rob the Bard, they will never sound again Where men loved and warred in Strathnaver!”

The ruin of the land of the good Highland fighting men is complete; the clan has sought new fields where there are no petty tyrants to rob them of their homes. “Let the salmon and the deer be your righting men to-day,” contemptuously says the poet to those who swept the people away from their homes. Let the salmon and the deer plead for the landlords when those who made the clearances are called “at the bar of heaven high, ye that swept the gallant glens, and reft away Mackay from Strathnaver!”

It was, however, some consolation to our poet of the Gael to hear later that the resumption of farms for deer-forests had been stayed in some parts, and that Strathnaver was being re-peopled by the children of its former occupants.