Poem "Donald Ban" by Rev. Ewan A. MacPherson

Donald Ban

Born in the Sheiling, snows at April time,
In the bleak year of seventeen twenty eight,
His name was Donald ban, the son of John.
His mother Mary a MacDonald girl,
Who had dark hair and came from Armadale.
She played the harp and had the second sight;
So people came to her when they were sick,
And she said ancient prayers the Christian way,
Her family were converted by the monks,
Who came with Calum Cille across the land.
Her husband John farmed land at Newtonmore,
And many times went out to serve his Chief.
He spoke the Gaelic, knew his French and Greek.
He had a flair for courtesy and read
The Iliad and the Bible everyday.
Out in the fields, his cattle all secured,
He played the pipes as lightly as a bird.

When the Prince came, all the world turned round.
The Clan went south with him and shared his fate.
Donald and John had fever at that time
But went in due course to Drumossie Moor.
They took the road to Grantown and the Spey
And fell in with Clan Chattan on the Moor.
Donald and John stood in the silent sleet.
They sang their forebears for five hundred years,
Then prayed and turned to face the German guns.
Unwashed, unfed, unshod and poorly led,
They ran unflinchingly to meet their end.

They fought for Gaeldom; for their land and kin.
They died because they could not bear to lose
A way of life and all that they held dear.
In death they saw the islands of the blessed.
At Tir na Noch across the Western Sea.
They died because they loved the way they lived;
Not for the honour of a Stuart Prince,
Who did not love them or the world they knew.
He knew the Court, not how the eagles flew,
Nor how the rain fell; how the west wind blew.
He knew his etiquette but not his men,
He had no wifie in a butt and ben.
He knew his cognac not his porridge oats,
He dressed in silk and knew no highland cloak.
Only in failure was he truly brave
As Charles the First was when he reached the grave.

John fell, claymore in hand and wooden targe,
Shot down before he knew by musket fire.
He had his Mary’s locket round his neck.
She, who went cold when he went cold and knew;
A crow flew over and a great cry came,
From all the depth of her once broken heart,
She took her place then by the rowan tree
And sang an old lament to mourn for him.

Donald beside him fell onto the moor.
It was his birthday and he was eighteen.
His present was a bullet in the lung
And scattered grapeshot on his arms and legs.
His saffron shirt was red with all his blood.
As in a pile of broken men he lay,
They thought him dead and in the night he fled
With two companions north to Wester Ross.
There he met Annie MacKintosh, whose kin
All died in battle that dark April day.
In the full moon they wed and had a son,
Whose name was John. He had his father’s eyes,
And one day in his age at Newtonmore,
When all his dress and language were not banned,
His tartan, his religion and his Chief,
He took a farm and played the pipes once more.
His wife was a MacDonald and she knew
The secrets of the Gael; and eagles flew
Because a royal race flowed on in her
And rowans curtsied when the west wind blew.

Ewan A. MacPherson
Somerset, U.K.
ewan@pmacpherson.fsnet.co.uk
	Read at the Clan Gathering Ceilidh on Sat. 5th August 2006.