This is a bilingual version of O Choille gu Bearraid, with the Scots Gaelic on one side of the pages and MacLean's own English versions facing it. They are, in effect, his collected poems. Somhairle MacGill-Eain, to give him his proper name, died in 1996 with a growing reputation as probably the finest poet writing in any of the Celtic languages over the last hundred years. Those who still remember their school Irish may feel tempted to face the originals, since much of the language is close to Irish and MacLean's lyric sensibility is readily accessible - a very personal balance of tradition and modernism. This volume, which is a Poetry Society recommendation, is an important venture in itself as well as a courageous one.