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  • Somhairle MacGill-Eain
    Sorley MacLean
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  • Ceann Loch Aoineart
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Ceann Loch Aoineart

Somhairle MacGill-Eain
Sorley MacLean

Còmhlan bheanntan, stòiteachd bheanntan,
còrr-lios bheanntan fàsmhor,
cruinneachadh mhullaichean, thulaichean, shlèibhtean
tighinn sa bheucaich ghàbhaidh.

Èirigh ghleanntan, choireachan ùdlaidh,
laighe sa bhùirich chràcaich;
sìneadh chluaineagan, shuaineagan srùthlach,
brìodal san dùbhlachd àrsaidh.

Eachraidh bheanntan, marcachd mhullaichean,
deann-ruith shruthanach càthair,
sleamhnachd leacannan, seangachd chreachainnean,
srannraich leacanach àrd-bheann.

Onfhadh-chrios mhullaichean,
confhadh-shlios thulaichean,
monmhar luim thurraidean màrsail,
gorm-shliosan Mhosgaraidh,
stoirm-shliosan mosganach,
borb-bhiodan mhonaidhean àrda.


Somhairle MacGill-Eain
Sorley MacLean

from Caoir Gheal Leumraich / White Leaping Flame: collected poems in Gaelic with English translations, edited by Christopher Whyte and Emma Dymock (Edinburgh: Polygon, 2011)

Reproduced by kind permission of Carcanet Press.

Tags:

Gaelic Gaelic mountains Placebook Scotland Skye Translations

Translations of this Poem

Kinloch Ainort

Translator: Sorley MacLean


A company of mountains, an upthrust of mountains,
a great garth of growing mountains,
a concourse of summits, of knolls, of hills
coming on with a fearsome roaring.

A rising of glens, of gloomy corries,
a lying down in the antlered bellowing;
a stretching of green nooks, of brook mazes,
prattling in the age-old mid-winter.

A cavalry of mountains, horse-riding summits,
a streaming headlong haste of foam,
a slipperiness of smooth flat rocks, small-bellied bare summits,
flat-rock snoring of high mountains.

A surge-belt of hill-tops,
impetuous thigh of peaks,
the murmuring bareness of marching turrets,
green flanks of Mosgary,
crumbling storm-flanks,
barbarous pinnacles of high moorlands.

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Somhairle MacGill-Eain
Sorley MacLean1911 - 1996

Sorley MacLean's mastery of his chosen medium and his engagement with the European poetic tradition and European politics make him one of the major Scottish poets of the modern era.
More about Somhairle MacGill-Eain
Sorley MacLean

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