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The poem is named after a deserted township located on the south-eastern corner of the Hebridean island of Raasay, the poet's birthplace. It is a reflection on the nature of time and the historical im...
The poem is named after a deserted township located on the south-eastern corner of the Hebridean island of Raasay, the poet's birthplace. It is a reflection on the nature of time and the historical impact of the Highland Clearances, leaving an empty landscape populated only by the ghosts of the evicted and those forced to emigrate.
Hallaig by Sorley MacLean, translated by Seamus Heaney
Time, the deer, is in Hallaig Wood
There's a board nailed across the window I looked through to see the west And my love is a birch forever By Hallaig Stream, at her tryst
Between Inver and Milk Hollow, somewhere around Baile-chuirn, A flickering birch, a hazel, A trim, straight sapling rowan.
In Screapadal, where my people Hail from, the seed and breed Of Hector Mor and Norman By the banks of the stream are a wood.
To-night the pine-cocks crowing On Cnoc an Ra, there above, And the trees standing tall in moonlight - They are not the wood I love.
I will wait for the birches to move, The wood to come up past the cairn Until it has veiled the mountain Down from Beinn na Lice in shade.
If it doesn't, I'll go to Hallaig, To the sabbath of the dead, Down to where each departed Generation has gathered.
Hallaig is where they survive, All the MacLeans and MacLeads Who were there in the time of Mac Gille Chaluim: The dead have been seen alive,
The men at their length on the grass At the gable of every house, The girls a wood of birch trees Standing tall, with their heads bowed.
Between The Leac and Fearns The road is plush with moss And the girls in a noiseless procession Going to Clachan as always
And coming boack from Clachan And Suisnish, their land of the living, Still lightsome and unheartbroken, Their stories only beginning.
From Fearns Burn to the raised beach Showing clear in the shrouded hills There are only girls congregating, Endlessly walking along
Back through the gloaming to Hallaig Through the vivid speechless air, Pouring down the steep slopes, Their laughter misting my ear
And their beauty a glaze on my heart. Then as the kyles go dim And the sun sets behind Dun Cana Love's loaded gun will take aim.
It will bring down the lightheaded deer As he sniffs the grass round the wallsteads And his eye will freeze: while I live, His blood won't be traced in the woods.