figure of radiant beauty draws near. She is so bright, so stately, the poet imagines her one of the immortals. Is she Deirdre? Is she Gearnait? Or is she Helen? Or Venus? He questions her, and learns that she is Erin; and her sorrow, he is told, is for her true mate who is in exile beyond the seas. This true mate is, according to the date of the composition, either the Old or Young Pretender; and the poem ends with a promise of speedy redemption on the return of the King's son." In Alasdair's hands, the conventions of the Aisling were given a cynical and comedic twist. Instead of a woman, the Bard describes a meeting with the ghost of a Campbell who was beheaded for supporting the Stuart claim to the throne. The ghost then tells the Bard that the Campbells will soon be punished for committing high treason against their lawful King, first being visited by the Ten Plagues of Egypt and then by another Great Flood upon their lands. The Bard is instructed to emulate Noah by building an Ark for carefully selected Campbells. The moderates will be welcomed aboard the Ark's decks after being purged of their Whiggery by swallowing a heavy dose of seawater. Redcoats from the Campbell of Argyll Militia are to be tied with millstones and thrown overboard. A female poet of the clan who had mocked Prince Charles and accused him of illegitimacy was to be treated to a fitting punishment before being delivered right into the Bard's hands. Also, Colin Roy Campbell of Glenure, who has been appointed as the Crown's Factor on the forfeited lands of Clan Stewart of Appin and Clan Cameron of Lochiel, is one of the few Whigs for whom the ghost confesses a certain respect: Reaction and aftermath According to Father Charles MacDonald, "In other passages he prays that the Butcher may have a rope tied around his neck and may be made to swing from it., – a blessing to which, if it could do any good, many a Highlander today would respond with a hearty amen. His choicest of offering to the King is the Scottish Maiden – i.e. the Guillotine – and so on. But these extravagant forms of lese majeste, and of course not at all to be approved of, even in a poet." Revealing that he saw the Jacobite risings