THE CANADIAN BOAT SONG.
(To THE Erases or me " Seccasecat.") 5m—eau you inform me if the lines quoted by "C. E. B." in tIre Spectator of September 22nd were correctly given? I heard them
quoted some twenty years ago by the Chairman at a St. Andrew's dinner at Bombay, and you will see the two versions vary some- what. Which is correct P And am I right in surmising that the author was Professor John Wilson ?— " From the lone shelling in the misty Island.
Mountains divide us and a world of seas; But still, our hearts are true, our hearts are Highland, And we in dreams, behold the Hebrides."
"From the lone shelling in the misty Island
Mountains divide us and the waste of seas; Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland.
And we in dreams behold the Hebrides."
—I am, Sir, Ac., L. P. [lVe fancy that the author of the "Canadian Boat Swag," DE the poem is called, wrote the former of the two versions of the lines which our correspondent quotes. Personally we prefer " world" to " a-note" of seas—it gives a bigger picture—but in the third line of the second version we think there is a distinct access of strength and thought. We remember that there was a corre- spondence in the Times Literary Supplement EOM yearo ago on the authorship of the poem. Some of the correspondents attributed it to John Galt.—Ep. Spectator.]
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