To join thy might, when call’d the right,
      A gallant army springing on,
    Would rise, from Assint to the crags
      Of Scalpa, rescue bringing on. 
    Each man upon, true-flinted gun,
      Steel glaive, and trusty dagaichean;
    With the Island Lord of Sleite,[157]
      When up rose thy cabar on!

    Came too the men of Muideart,[158]
      While stream’d their flag its bravery;
    Their gleaming weapons, blue-dyed,[159]
      That havock’d on the cavalry. 
    Macalister,[160] Mackinnon,
      With many a flashing trigger there,
    The foemen rushing in on,
      Resistless shew’d their vigour there. 
    May fortune free thee—­may we see thee
      Again in Braun,[161] the turreted,
    Girt with thy clan!  And not a man
      But will get the scorn he merited. 
    Then wine will play, and usquebae
      From flaggons, and from badalan,[162]
    And pipers scream—­when Staghead
      High raises his cabar on.

[132] Applicable both to the chief and his crest.

[133] Literally, “the dress,” (pron. eidi,) i.e., Highland garb, not yet abolished.

[134] Sutherlanders, or Caithness men.

[135] Banner.

[136] Monro of Fowlis.

[137] Rose of Kilravock and his clan.

[138] Grant of Grant.

[139] Lovat.

[140] Of Culloden.

[141] Of Sutherland.

[142] Lord Reay.

[143] Steed.  The Celtic “Cabul” and Latin “Caballus” correspond.

[144] Here the bard is a little obscure; but he seems to mean that the Monroes made their escape over the skulls of the dead, as if they were boats or coracles by which to cross or get away from danger.

[145] The Caithness and Sutherland men.

[146] Lovat’s men.

[147] The eagle being the crest of the Monro.

[148] The eagle; the crest of Monro of Fowlis.  The filthy and cruel habits of this predatory bird are here contrasted with the forest-manners of the stag in a singular specimen of clan vituperation.

[149] Fioreun, the name of the eagle, signifying true bird.

[150] Literally—­Accursed by Moses, or the Mosaic law.

[151] The single eagle’s feather crested the chieftain’s bonnet.

[152] Literally—­If thy feather is noble, thy claws are (of) the devil!

[153] This picture of the eagle is not much for edification—­nor another hit at the lion of the Macdonalds, then at feud with the Seaforth.  The former is abridged, and the latter omitted; as also a lively detail of the creagh, in which the Monroes are reproached with their spoilages of cheese, butter, and winter-mart beef.

[154] Seaforth.

[155] Literally—­Bagpipes.

[156] Macallammore:  Argyle.

[157] Macdonald of Sleat.

[158] Clanranald’s country.