A Book of Irish Verse Part 30

How did Lord Edward die?

Like a man, without a sigh; But he left his handiwork on Major Swan!

But Sirr, with steel-clad breast, And coward heart at best, Left us cause to mourn Lord Edward that is gone, boys, gone: Here's the memory of our friends that are gone!

September, Eighteen-three, Closed this cruel history, When Emmett's blood the scaffold flowed upon O, had their spirits been wise, They might then realize Their freedom--but we drink to Mitch.e.l.l that is gone, boys, gone: Here's the memory of the friends that are gone!

A FOLK VERSE

When you were an acorn on the tree top, Then was I an eagle c.o.c.k; Now that you are a withered old block, Still am I an eagle c.o.c.k.

NOTES

Page xxi, lines 21 to 25. A well-known poet of the Fenian times has made the curious boast--'Talking of work--since Sunday, two cols. notes, two cols. London gossip, and a leader one col., and one col. of verse for the _Nation_. For _Catholic Opinion_, two pages of notes and a leader.

For _Ill.u.s.trated Magazine_, three poems and a five col. story.'

Page 1. 'The deserted village' is Lissoy, near Ballymahon, and Sir Walter Scott tells of a hawthorn there which has been cut up into toothpicks by Goldsmith enthusiasts; but the feeling and atmosphere of the poem are unmistakably English.

Page 8. Some verses in 'The Epicurean' were put into French by Theophile Gautier for the French translation, and back again into English by Mr.

Robert Bridges. If any Irish reader who thinks Moore a great poet, will compare his verses with the results of this double distillation, and notice the gradual disappearance of their vague rhythms and loose phrases, he will be the less angry with the introduction to this book.

Moore wrote as follows--

You, who would try Yon terrible track, To live or to die, But ne'er to turn back.

You, who aspire To be purified there, By the terror of fire, Of water, and air,--

If danger, and pain, And death you despise, On--for again Into light you shall rise:

Rise into light With the secret divine, Now shrouded from sight By a veil of the shrine.

These lines are certainly less amazing than the scrannel piping of his usual anapaests; but few will hold them to be 'of their own arduous fullness reverent'! Theophile Gautier sets them to his instrument in this fas.h.i.+on,

Vous qui voulez courir La terrible carriere, Il faut vivre ou mourir, Sans regard en arriere:

Vous qui voulez tenter L'onde, l'air, et la flamme, Terreurs a surmonter Pour epurer votre ame,

Si, meprisant la mort, Votre foi reste entiere, En avant!--le coeur fort Reverra la lumiere.

Et lira sur l'autel Le mot du grand mystere, Qu'au profane mortel Derobe un voile austere.

Then comes Mr. Robert Bridges, and lifts them into the rapture and precision of poetry--

O youth whose hope is high, Who dost to truth aspire, Whether thou live or die, O look not back nor tire.

Thou that art bold to fly Through tempest, flood, and fire, Nor dost not shrink to try Thy heart in torments dire:

If thou canst Death defy, If thy faith is entire, Press onward, for thine eye Shall see thy heart's desire.

Beauty and love are nigh, And with their deathless quire-- Soon shall thine eager cry Be numbered and expire.

Page 27. 'Dark Rosaleen' is one of the old names of Ireland. Mangan's translation is very free; as a rule when he tried to translate literally, as in 'The Munster Bards,' all glimmer of inspiration left him.

Page 32, line 20. 'This pa.s.sage is not exactly a blunder, though at first it may seem one: the poet supposes the grave itself transferred to Ireland, and he naturally includes in the transference the whole of the immediate locality about the grave' (Mangan note).

Page 47, line 6. The two Meaths once formed a distinct province.

Page 55, line 7. This poem is an account of Mangan's own life, and is, I think, redeemed out of rhetoric by its intensity. The following poem, 'Siberia,' describes, perhaps, his own life under a symbol.

Page 59. Hy Brasail, or Teer-Nan-Oge, is the island of the blessed, the paradise of ancient Ireland. It is still thought to be seen from time to time glimmering far off.

Page 61. _Mo Craoibhin Cno_ means my cl.u.s.ter of nuts, and is p.r.o.nounced _Mo Chreevin Kn_.

Page 64. Mr. O'Keefe has sent the writer a Gaelic version of this poem, possibly by Walsh himself. A correspondent of his got it from an old peasant who had not a word of English. A well-known Gaelic scholar p.r.o.nounces it a translation, and not the original of the present poem.

_Mairgread ni Chealleadh_ is p.r.o.nounced _Mairgred nei Kealley_. The _Ceanabhan_, p.r.o.nounced _Kanovan_, is the bog cotton, and the _Monadan_ is a plant with a red berry found on marshy mountains.

Page 69. _A cuisle geal mo chroidhe_, p.r.o.nounced _A cushla gal mo chre_, means 'bright pulse of my heart.'

Page 74. Sir Samuel Ferguson introduces the poem as follows:--

Several Welsh families, a.s.sociates in the invasion of Strongbow, settled in the West of Ireland. Of these, the princ.i.p.al, whose names have been preserved by the Irish antiquarians, were the Walshes, Joyces, Heils (_a quibus_ MacHale), Lawlesses, Tolmyns, Lynotts, and Barretts, which last draw their pedigree from Walynes, son of Guyndally, the _Ard Maor_, or High Steward of the Lords.h.i.+p of Camelot, and had their chief seats in the territory of the two Bacs, in the barony of Tirawley, and county of Mayo. _Clochan-na-n'all_, i. e. 'The Blind Men's Stepping-stones,' are still pointed out on the Duvowen river, about four miles north of Crossmolina, in the townland of Garranard; and _Tubber-na-Scorney_, or 'Scrags Well,' in the opposite townland of Carns, in the same barony.

For a curious _terrier_ or applotment of the Mac William's revenue, as acquired under the circ.u.mstances stated in the legend preserved by Mac Firbis, see Dr. O'Donovan's highly-learned and interesting 'Genealogies, &c. of Hy. Fiachrach,' in the publications of the _Irish Archaeological Society_--a great monument of antiquarian and topographical erudition.

Page 90, line 6. 'William Conquer' was William Fitzadelm De Burgh, the Conqueror of Connaught.

Page 91, line 4. Sir Samuel Ferguson introduces the poem as follows:--

Aideen, daughter of Angus of Ben-Edar (now the Hill of Howth), died of grief for the loss of her husband, Oscar, son of Ossian, who was slain at the battle of Gavra (_Gowra_, near Tara in Meath), A.D. 284. Oscar was entombed in the rath or earthen fortress that occupied part of the field of battle, the rest of the slain being cast in a pit outside.

Aideen is said to have been buried on Howth, near the mansion of her father, and poetical tradition represents the Fenian heroes as present at her obsequies. The Cromlech in Howth Park has been supposed to be her sepulchre. It stands under the summits from which the poet Atharne is said to have launched his invectives against the people of Leinster, until, by the blighting effect of his satires, they were compelled to make him atonement for the death of his son.

Page 99. 'There was then no man in the host of Ulster that could be found who would put the sons of Usnach to death, so loved were they of the people and n.o.bles. But in the house of Conor was one called Maine Rough Hand, son of the king of Lochlen, and Naesi had slain his father and two brothers, and he undertook to be their executioners. So the sons of Usnach were then slain, and the men of Ulster, when they beheld their death, sent forth their heavy shouts of sorrow and lamentation. Then Deirdre fell down beside their bodies wailing and weeping, and she tore her hair and garments and bestowed kisses on their lifeless lips and bitterly bemoaned them. And a grave was opened for them, and Deirdre, standing by it, with her hair dishevelled and shedding tears abundantly, chanted their funeral song.' (_Hibernian Nights' Entertainment_.)

Page 102. _Uileacan Dubh O_', p.r.o.nounced _Uileacaun Doov O_, is a phrase of lamentation.

Page 108, line 16. 'Anna Grace' is the heroine of another ballad by Ferguson. She also was stolen by the Fairies.

Page 112, line 6. Thomas Davis had an Irish father and a Welsh mother, and Emily Bronte an Irish father and a Cornish mother, and there seems no reason for including the first and excluding the second. I find, perhaps fancifully, an Irish vehemence in 'Remembrance.' Several of the Irish poets have been of mixed Irish-Celtic and British-Celtic blood.

William Blake has been recently claimed as of Irish descent, upon the evidence of Dr. Carter Blake; and if, in the course of years, that claim becomes generally accepted, he should be included also in Irish anthologies.

Page 119, line 13. 'The little Black Rose' is but another form of 'Dark Rosaleen,' and has a like significance. 'The Silk of the Kine' is also an old name for Ireland.

Page 138. _Maire Bhan Astor_ is p.r.o.nounced _Mauria vaun a-stor_, and means 'Fair Mary, my treasure.'