The Poem-Book of the Gael. Various

The Poem-Book of the Gael - Various


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href="#ulink_32c9ac3a-f669-5805-a0a7-9f0bde3b7fcf">PASTHEEN FINN

       SHE

       HOPELESS LOVE

       THE GIRL I LOVE

       WOULD GOD I WERE

       BRANCH OF THE SWEET AND EARLY ROSE

       IS TRUAGH GAN MISE I SASANA

       THE YELLOW BITTERN

       HAVE YOU BEEN AT CARRACK?

       CASHEL OF MUNSTER

       THE SNOWY-BREASTED PEARL

       THE DARK MAID OF THE VALLEY

       THE COOLUN

       CEANN DUBH DHILEAS [115]

       RINGLETED YOUTH OF MY LOVE

       I SHALL NOT DIE FOR YOU

       DONALL OGE

       THE GRIEF OF A GIRL'S HEART

       DEATH THE COMRADE

       MUIRNEEN OF THE FAIR HAIR

       THE RED MAN'S WIFE

       ANOTHER VERSION

       MY GRIEF ON THE SEA

       ORÓ MHÓR, A MHÓIRÍN

       THE LITTLE YELLOW ROAD

       REPROACH TO THE PIPE

       LAMENT OF MORIAN SHEHONE FOR MISS MARY BOURKE

       MODEREEN RUE; OR, THE LITTLE RED ROGUE [120]

       THE STARS STAND UP

       THE LOVE SMART

       WELL FOR THEE

       I AM RAFTERY

       DUST HATH CLOSED HELEN'S EYE

       THE SHINING POSY

       LOVE IS A MORTAL DISEASE

       I AM WATCHING MY YOUNG CALVES SUCKING

       THE NARROW ROAD

       FORSAKEN

       I FOLLOW A STAR

       NURSE'S SONG

       A SLEEP SONG

       THE CRADLE OF GOLD

       RURAL SONG

       PLOUGHING SONG

       A SPINNING-WHEEL DITTY

       NOTES

       Table of Contents

      "An air is more lasting than the voice of the birds,

       A word is more lasting than the riches of the world."

      The truth of this Irish proverb strikes us forcibly as we glance through any such collection of Gaelic poetry as this, and consider how these lays, the dates of whose composition extend from the eighth to the present century, have been preserved to us.

      On the border of some grave manuscript, such as a Latin copy of St. Paul's Epistles or a transcript of Priscian, a stray quatrain may be found jotted down by the tired scribe, recording in impromptu verse his delight at the note of a blackbird whose song has penetrated his cell, his amusement at the gambols of his cat watching a mouse, or his reflections on a piece of news brought to him by some wandering monk, about the terror of the viking raids, or a change of dynasty "at home in Ireland."

      Several of our Ossianic poems are taken from a manuscript of lays collected in 1626–27 in and about the Glens of Antrim, and sent out to while away the tedium of camp life to an Irish officer serving in the Low Countries, who wearied for the poems and stories of his youth. The religious hymns of Murdoch O'Daly (Muredach Albanach), called "the Scot" on account of his affection for his adopted country, though he was born in Connaught, are preserved in a collection of poems gathered in the Western Highlands, many Irish poems, even from so great a distance as Munster, being found in it.

      The Saltair na Rann or "Psalter of the Verses," the most important religious poem of ancient Ireland, is preserved in one copy only. It seems as though a miracle had sometimes intervened to guard for later generations some single version of a valuable tract at home or abroad; but it is a miracle which we could


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