Themes
Love
From the opening stanza of the poem, the girl of the red hair is addressed as love
. When MacLean goes on to describe her as my pursuit
, the reader assumes that the girl does not love him back.
Like in I Gave You Immortality, the idea that MacLean鈥檚 love is unrequited is the driving force behind the grief and sorrow that surrounds the poem 鈥 at the end of the second stanza, MacLean writes that:
my hopes are gone, gloom overshadows me
Though MacLean鈥檚 love and affection is not returned, that does not seem to lessen his strength of feeling.
MacLean makes several references to his pursuit
of the woman, and the apparent futility of this pursuit does not dissuade the speaker from maintaining it. Perhaps MacLean鈥檚 emotions trump his logic, summarised with his statement:
my heart is dumb
Though this is chiefly a poem about love, it is a poem that captures the desolation that love can bring.
Place
Even in a poem as personal as this, a sense of place is central to the poem. MacLean references two places directly:
- the Sound of Raasay
- Dun Caan
These places are used as a springboard for the speaker鈥檚 emotions, which are consistently pessimistic.
It is interesting that in this poem, the places that MacLean describes are never glamourised or presented in a positive way. This re-enforces the sense of pessimism that runs throughout the poem. It also links MacLean to the landscape in which this poem is set. Even during dark times like this, the poet and the place are inseparable.
At times in MacLean鈥檚 poetry, he is presented as an extension of place. Here, it is the negative depiction of place that reflects the speaker. None of Rasaay鈥檚 beauty is captured in this poem.