THE MYSTERY OF AMERGIN.
PAGE 3
Of this strange pantheistical fragment, Dr Douglas Hyde writes:—“The
first poem written in Ireland is said to have been the work of Amergin,
who was brother of Evir, Ir, and Eremon, the first Milesian princes who
colonised Ireland many hundred of years before Christ. The three short
pieces of verse ascribed to Amergin are certainly very ancient and very
strange. But, as the whole story of the Milesian invasion is wrapped in
mystery and is quite possibly only a rationalised account of early Irish
mythology (in which the Tuatha De Danann, Firbolgs, and possibly
Milesians, are nothing but the gods of the early Irish euhemerised into
men), no faith can be placed in the alleged date or genuineness of
Amergin’s verses. They are, however, of interest, because as Irish
tradition has always represented them as being the first verses made in
Ireland, so it may very well be that they actually do present the oldest
surviving lines in any vernacular tongue in Europe except Greek.”
THE SONG OF FIONN.
PAGE 4
“The Song of Finn MacCool, composed after his eating of the Salmon of
Knowledge.” This, if not the earliest, is almost the earliest authentic
fragment of Erse poetry. The translation is after O’Donovan and Dr
Douglas Hyde.
CREDHE’S LAMENT.
PAGE 5
From The Colloquy of the Ancients (called also “The Dialogue of the
Sages,” and by other analogues), translated by Standish Hayes O’Grady
(vide The Book of Lismore; Silva Gadelica; etc.). See specific
mention in Introduction.
CUCHULLIN IN HIS CHARIOT.
PAGE 6
(Source: Hector MacLean’s Ultonian Hero Ballads. See Introduction.)
DEIRDRE’S LAMENT FOR THE SONS OF USNACH.
PAGE 8
Of the many Irish-Gaelic and Scottish-Gaelic and English translations
and paraphrases, I have selected the rendering of Sir Samuel Ferguson.
The original Erse is of unknown antiquity. (See Introduction.)
THE LAMENT OF QUEEN MAEV.
PAGE 10
This admirable translation is by Mr T. W. Rolleston (vide Note to p.
166), after the original in The Book of Leinster.
THE MARCH OF THE FAERIE HOST.
PAGE 12
This striking poem is given as translated by Professor Kuno Meyer. It
and other verses are to be found, in the original, in The Book of
Lismore (15th century). The particular narrative therein deals with the
visit of Laegaire mac Crimthainn to the land of Faerie. The episodic
portion of this narrative has been translated and edited by Mr Standish
Hayes O’Grady (see Silva Gadelica); but the general reader may be more
interested in the brief and lucid commentary of Professor Kuno Meyer
(see The Voyage of Bran—with Essay on the Celtic Elysium, by Mr
Alfred Nutt—recently published by D. Nutt). Professor Meyer considers
this and the other verses of “Laegaire mac Crimthainn” to be as old as
the 10th century period. “The Faerie Host,” as here given, is
fragmentary, being part of an episode; but I have further curtailed it
by three lines, for the sake of effect and unity of impression. The
other three lines are—
“At all times melodious are they,
Quick-witted in song-making,
Skilled at playing fiachell.”
VISION OF A FAIR WOMAN.
PAGE 13
This characteristic Scoto-Celtic poem is supposed by some scholars to be
very ancient. The Gaelic version permits of some doubt on the
conjecture, but the text is not in this instance conclusive. The
“Aisling” will be found in Smith’s Collection of Ancient Poems, from
the Gaelic of Ossian, Ullin, Orran, and others (1780)—the reputed
originals of which were published in 1787. See, for easier reference,
Nigel MacNeil’s Literature of the Highlanders, p. 218.
THE FIAN BANNERS.
PAGE 14
This paraphrase of an ancient poem is modern. The original is supposed
to relate to the Scoto-Celtic and Viking wars of the 11th century. (See
Nigel MacNeil’s Literature of the Highlanders, p. 117.)
THE RUNE OF ST PATRICK (“THE FAEDH; OR, THE CRY OF THE DEER”).
PAGE 17
This translation of the “Faedh,” from The Book of Hymns (11th
century), is by Charles Mangan.
COLUMCILLE CECENIT.
PAGE 18
The version of Colum’s Hymn here given is the translation of Dr Douglas
Hyde, himself a poet, and one of the foremost living Irish folk-lorists.
All students of Celtic literature should see his fascinating volume of
metrical renderings of the old Erse, The Three Sorrows of
Story-Telling. (Vide Notes to p. 126.)
COLUMCILLE FECIT.
PAGE 20
This well-known poem is given as translated by Michael O’Curry, from an
Irish MS. in the Burgundian Library of Brussels.
THE SONG OF MURDOCH THE MONK.
PAGE 22
This “Monastic Shaving Song” is the version of Professor Blackie, as
translated from Bishop Ewing’s Book.
DOMHNULL MAC FHIONNLAIDH. “THE AGED BARD’S WISH.”
PAGE 23
Although this undoubtedly old Gaelic poem is attributed by its
translators, Charles Edward Stuart and John Sobieski, to the early bard
Domhnull Mac Fhionnlaidh, there is no certainty (as they admit) either
as to authorship or date. This version is taken from Ballads and Songs
by Charles Edward Stuart and John Sobieski.
“OSSIAN SANG.”
PAGE 28
The original was jotted down in phonetic Gaelic by Dean Macgregor some
380 years ago.
FINGAL AND ROS-CRANA.
PAGE 29
This is not part of the text of Macpherson’s Ossian though the
Englishing is by Macpherson, who attributes the original to Colgan, an
ancient Scoto-Irish bard. It will be found in the Notes to Temora.
(See Introduction.)
THE NIGHT-SONG OF THE BARDS.
PAGE 31
Macpherson “translated” this, he avers, from an old Gaelic original. His
version is to be found in the Notes to Croma.
OSSIAN. “COMALA.”
PAGE 35
I have selected this short poem as representative of the semi-mythical
Ossian of Macpherson. It is undoubtedly ancient substantially.
THE DEATH-SONG OF OSSIAN.
PAGE 41
The close of “The Songs of Selma.” (See foregoing Note.)
THE POOL OF PILATE.
PAGE 45
From the ancient Cornish drama, The Resurrection of Christ (vide
section: “The Death of Pilate”). See the volume on the subject by Mr
Edwin Norris, referred to in Note to “The Vision of Seth.”
MERLIN THE DIVINER.
PAGE 46
(Vide Introduction.) This, though it exists in the old Cornish
dialect, is really an ancient Breton incantation. The Cornish variant is
to be found in that invaluable depository of Armorican legendary lore,
the Barzaz Breiz. The translation here given is by Thos. Stephens.
(Vide Thos. Stephens: a Memoir. Wm. Rees, Llandovery, 1849.)
THE VISION OF SETH.
PAGE 47
This dramatic fragment is from The Ancient Cornish Drama, edited and
translated by Edwin Norris, Sec. R.A.S. (Oxford, 1859).
THE DANCE OF THE SWORD.
PAGE 53
(Vide Introduction.) In Armorican, Gwin ar C‘ Hallaoued: Ha Korol or
C‘ Hlezf—i.e. The Wine of the Gauls, and the Dance of the Sword.
Supposed to be the fragment of a Song that accompanied the old Celtic
sword-dance in honour of the Sun. [This and the following translation by
the late Tom Taylor are, by courteous permission of Messrs Macmillan,
quoted from Ballads and Songs of Brittany (selections from the Barzaz
Breiz of the Vicomte Hersart de la Villemarqué).]
THE LORD NANN AND THE FAIRY.
PAGE 55
(By the same, and from the same source.) The “Korrigan” of Breton
superstition has his familiar congeners in Celtic Scotland and Ireland;
and is identical with the “elf” of Scandinavian mythology and of the
Danish ballads. In this English version of “The Lord Nann” the metre and
divisions into stanzas of the original Armorican have been adhered to.
The triplet indicates antiquity in Cambrian and Armorican compositions.
ALAIN THE FOX.
PAGE 58
This and the following poem are from the same Franco-Breton source as
their two predecessors, but are translated by Mr F. G. Fleay, M.A. (The
Masterpieces of Breton Ballads. Printed for Private Circulation.
Halifax, 1870).
BRAN (THE CROW).
PAGE 60
See foregoing Note.
THE SOUL.
PAGE 67
This strange fragment is of unknown antiquity, and may well be, as
affirmed, of as remote a date as the 6th or even 5th century. It is from
that remarkable depository of early Cymric lore, The Black Book of
Caermarthen (1154-1189).
LLYWARC’H HEN.
PAGE 68
The “Gorwynion” of Llywarc’h Hên, “Prince of the Cambrian Britons” (if
it is really the work of that poet), is one of the most famous
productions of early Cymric literature. Llywarc’h Hên’s floreat is by
some authorities placed in the middle of the 7th century, by others so
early as the beginning of the 6th, and by others as really extending
from early in the 6th till the middle of the 7th: the drift of evidence
indicates the remoter date as the more probable. The translation here
given was made about a hundred years ago by William Owen. It is not easy
to find an English equivalent for “Gorwynion,” a plural word which
signifies objects that have a very bright whiteness or glare. Perhaps
the word glitterings might serve, though, as has been suggested, the
nearest term would be Coruscants. The last line of these verses
generally contains some moral maxim, unconnected with the preceding
lines, except in the metre. It is said that the custom arose through the
desire of the bards to assist the memory in the conveyance of
instruction by oral means. In the translation the rhymed or assonantal
unity of the tercets is lost, with the result that the third-line maxim
generally comes in with almost ludicrous inappositeness. According to
the Triads of the Isle of Britain, Llywarc’h Hên passed his younger
days at the Court of Arthur. In one triad he is alluded to as one of
the three free guests at the Arthurian Court; in another, as one of the
three counselling warriors. According to tradition, the bones of this
princely bard lie beneath the Church of Llanvor, where, as averred, he
was interred at the patriarchal age of 150 years. He was not one of the
Sacred Bards, because of his military profession as a prince and knight;
for these might not carry arms, and in their presence a naked sword even
might not be held. The Beirdd were not poets and sages only, but were
accounted and accepted as missioners of peace.
LLYWARC’H HEN.
PAGE 71
This is another series of “Gorwynion,” attributed to Llywarc’h Hên by Mr
Skene, who has translated it from The Red Book of Hergest (MS.
compiled in 14th and 15th centuries). The English rendering of The Red
Book was issued through Messrs Edmonston & Douglas of Edinburgh in
1868.
TALIESIN.
PAGE 73
“Song to the Wind” (Vide Introduction). “The Song about the Wind,” of
which only a section is given here, will be found in full in Skene’s
Four Ancient Books of Wales, Vol. I., page 535, and is the most famous
poem by the most famous of Cymric bards. It was first translated, some
forty-five years ago, by Lady Charlotte Guest, whose Englished
renderings of the “Mabinogion” attracted the attention of scholars
throughout the whole Western world. (Longmans, 1849 and later.) Emerson
delighted in the “Song,” and declared it to be one of the finest pieces
of its kind extant in any literature. See also the Myvyrian
Archaiology.
ANEURIN.
PAGE 75
Aneurin was one of the famous warrior bards of ancient Wales. His birth
is noted as Circa 500 A.D., and in any case he flourished during the
first half of the 6th century. Aneurin—like Taliesin, called “the
monarch of the bards”—was a Briton of Manau Gododin, a principality or
province of Cymric Scotland, now Mid-Lothian and Linlithgowshire. Manau
Gododin stretched from the Carron of to-day (the Carun of Ossian), some
miles to the north-west of Falkirk to the river Esk, that now divides
Mid-Lothian and East Lothian. Manau Gododin was then much more Celtic
(Pictish) than Gododin. “Breatan Cymru” (i.e. the country of the Welsh
Britons) then comprised the larger part of southern Scotland—that is,
from the north end of Loch Lomond, and from the upper reaches of the
Gwruid (the Forth), to the Mull of Galloway on the south-west; eastward
to a line drawn from the western Lammermuirs, by Melrose, Kelso, and
Jedburgh, and so down by the Cheviots to Hexham, and thence
southwesterly by Cumberland. The exception was the Pictish or Celtic
province of Galloway—bounded on the west by Carrawg (that part of
Ayrshire known as Carrick); on the north by Coel (Kyle); on the east by
a line drawn from Sanquhar through Nithsdale and by Dumfries to
Locharmoss and the Solway; on the south-west, by Novant (Mull of
Galloway); and on the south by the Solway Firth.
Aneurin was a contemporary of the princely poet, Llywarc’h Hên. He was
called Aneurin y Coed Awr ap Caw o Gwm Cawlwyd—or, again, Aneurin
Gwadrydd—both designations indicative of his greatness. It has been
maintained that Aneurin is identical with the celebrated Gildas, “the
author of the Latin epistle which Bede so blindly copied,” both Aneurin
and Gildas having been sons of Caw. He is supposed to be alluded to as
the seventh bard, in a curious fragment preserved in the Myvyrian
Archaiology (Vol. III.), which I excerpt here.
“The seven questions put by Catwg the Wise, to the Seven Wise Men of the
College of Llanvuthan, and the answers of these men:
1. “What is the greatest wisdom of man?” “To be able to do evil and
not to do it,” answered St Tedio.
2. “What is the highest goodness of man?” “Justice,” answered
Tahaiarn.
3. “What is the worst principle of man?” “Falsehood,” answered
Taliesin, chief of Bards.
4. “What is the noblest action of man?” “Correctness,” answered
Cynan, son of Clydno Eddin.
5. “What is the greatest folly of man?” “To desire a common evil,
which he cannot do,” answered Ystyvan, the Bard of Teilo.
6. “Who is the poorest man?” “He who is not contented with his own
property,” answered Arawn, son of Cynvarch.
7. “Who is the richest man?” “He who does not covet anything
belonging to others,” answered Gildas of Coed Awr.
“The Ode to the Months” is given in the translation of William Probert
(1820), according to whom the Ode contains moral maxims and observations
which were known and repeated long before Aneurin lived, and were put
into verse by him as an aid to the memory: “valuable, because they show
the modes of thinking and expression which the primitive inhabitants of
Britain used nearly 2000 years ago.”
DAFYDD AP GWILYM.
PAGE 78
(Fl. 14th century.) In his love of Nature, and in the richness of his
poetic imagination (as well, so say those who can read Welsh fluently,
as in his poetry), Dafydd ap Gwilym is the Keats of Wales. The romance
of his life and wild-wood experiences has yet to be written: and we
still await an adequate translator—though, to judge from some recent
renderings by Mr Ernest Rhys, in an interesting short study of Dafydd,
recently published in The Chap Book (Stone & Kimball, Chicago) we may
not have to wait much longer. He was a love-child: of noble parentage,
though born under a hedge at Llandaff. His mother wedded after his
birth; but he remained the “wilding” throughout his life. He became the
favourite of Ivor Hael of Emlyn, with whose daughter Morvydd he fell in
love. He wooed and won her “under the greenwood tree,” but only to lose
her shortly afterward, when she was forcibly married to a man called Bwa
Bach. Dafydd stole her from her legitimate husband, but was captured and
imprisoned. His ultimate release was due to the payment of the imposed
fine, the sum having been got together by the men of Glamorgan. His most
ardent love-poetry is addressed to this fair Morvydd.
RHYS GOCH OF ERYRI.
PAGE 82
There are two famous poets of the name of Rhys Goch; probably both
belong to the 14th century (and Wilkins certainly disputes the claim of
Rhys Goch ap Rhiccart to be of the 12th century). This Ode is an
illustration of the sound answering the sense. Rhys was in love with the
fair Gwen of Dol, and sent a peacock to her. His rival, also a bard,
composed a poem to the Fox, beseeching it to kill his rival’s present,
and, singularly enough, the bird was destroyed by a fox, and the rival
bard was happy. Stung by this misadventure, Rhys composed the above,
which, in the original, so teems with gutturals that Sion Tudor called
it the “Shibboleth of Sobriety, because no man, when drunk, could
possibly pronounce it.”
RHYS GOCH AP RHICCART.
PAGE 83
See foregoing Note.
A.E. PAGES 87-91
From Homeward Songs by the Way (Whaley, Dublin).
This little book, published in paper covers, and apparently with every
effort to avoid rather than court publicity, almost immediately
attracted the notice of the few who watch contemporary poetry with
scrupulously close attention. The author, who is well known in Dublin
literary society, prefers to disguise his identity in public under the
initials A.E., though it is no longer a secret that Mr G. W. Russell is
the name of this poet-dreamer, who, like Blake, of whom he is a student
and interpreter, has also a faculty of pictorial expression of a rare
and distinctive kind.
WM. ALLINGHAM. (1824-1889.) PAGES 92-94
Every lover of Irish poetry is familiar with “The Fairies” of the late
William Allingham. He is an Irish rather than distinctively a Celtic
poet in the strict sense of the word; but every now and again he strikes
the genuine Celtic note, as in his well-known “Fairies,” and the little
poem called the “Æolian Harp,” by which he is also represented here.
Much the best critical summary of his life-work is to be found in the
brief memoir by Mr W. B. Yeats in Miles’ Poets and Poetry of the
Century, Vol. V., p. 209. Among the innumerable love songs of the Irish
peasantry there are few more beautiful than Allingham’s “Mary Donnelly.”
As Mr Yeats says, he was “the poet of little things and little moments,
and neither his emotions nor his thoughts took any wide sweep over the
world of Man and Nature.” His “Laurence Bloomfield” is already
practically forgotten; but many of the lighter and often exquisitely
deft lyrics of his early life will remain in the memory of the Irish
people, and one or two at least in English literature.
THOMAS BOYD.
PAGE 95
So far as I know, Mr Thomas Boyd has not published any volume of verse.
Some of his poems have appeared in United Ireland, among them the
beautiful lines, “To the Lianhaun Shee.”
EMILY BRONTË. (1818-1848.)
PAGE 97
It may be as well to explain to those readers who take it for granted
that Emily Brontë is to be accounted an English poet, that she was of
Irish nationality and birth. The name Brontë, so familiar now through
the genius of herself and her sister, was originally Prunty. Everything
from her pen has a note of singular distinction; but perhaps she could
hardly be more characteristically represented than by the poem called
“Remembrance.” The, in quantity, meagre poetic legacy of the author of
Wuthering Heights is comprised (under her pseudonym, Ellis Bell) in
the volume Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell.
STOPFORD A. BROOKE.
PAGE 98-100
“The Earth and Man” and “Song” (from the poem called “Six Days”) are
from Mr Stopford Brooke’s volume, Poems (Macmillan & Co.). These seem
to me fairly representative of the distinctive atmosphere which Mr
Brooke conveys in all his poetry. See particularly his Riquet of The
Tuft (1880) and Poems (1888).
JOHN K. CASEY.
PAGE 101-3
Most of Mr Casey’s poems appeared above the signature “Leo.” Born in
1846, the son of a peasant, his early efforts to make literature his
profession were handicapped by inevitable disadvantages. In 1876 he was
arrested as a Fenian conspirator, and imprisoned. This, combined with
the influence of his unselfish patriotism and the popularity of many of
his lyrics, gave him a recognised place in the Irish Brotherhood of
Song.
GEORGE DARLEY. (1795-1846.)
PAGE 104
This remarkable poet, who has so strangely lapsed from public
remembrance, was in his own day greatly admired by his fellow-poets and
the most discerning critics of the period. Mrs Browning, and Robert
Browning still more, were deeply impressed by what is now his best known
production—Sylvia: a Lyrical Drama (1836); and Alfred Tennyson was so
struck by the quality of the young poet’s work that he volunteered to
defray the cost of publishing his verse. Lord Tennyson frequently, in
conversation, alluded to George Darley as one of the “hopelessly
misapprehended men”; and we have Robert Browning’s own authority, says
Darley’s latest biographer, Mr John H. Ingram, for stating that
Sylvia did much to determine the form of his own early dramas.
Sylvia, again, charmed Coleridge; and in 1836, Miss Mitford, whom Mr
Ingram calls a leading spirit among the literati of her day,
writes:—“I have just had a present of a most exquisite poem, which old
Mr Carey (the translator of Dante and Pindar) thinks more highly of than
any poem of the present day—‘Sylvia, or The May Queen,’ by George
Darley. It is exquisite—something between the ‘Faithful Shepherdess’
and the ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream.’”
Darley was the eldest child of Arthur Darley, of the Scalp, County
Wicklow. The poet, however, was not born there, but in Dublin, in the
year 1795. While he was a child, his parents emigrated to the United
States; and the boy spent the first ten years of his life at the family
home in Wicklow. In due time, and subsequent to the return of his
parents from America, he went through the usual scholastic routine,
though he did not graduate at Trinity College, Dublin, till his
twenty-fifth year—a delay in great part due to what, then and later, he
considered a disastrous impediment of speech. From the loss of a
scholarship to the social deprivations he underwent in London, this
infirmity, he declared, was his evil fortune. His first book, The
Errors of Ecstasie, was published (1822) in London, where he had
settled. Needless to say, as this volume consists mainly of a dialogue
between a Mystic and the Moon, the reading public remained in absolute
ignorance of the new poet. His second book (1826) consisted of a series
of prose tales and verses, collectively entitled—The Labours of
Idleness; or, Seven Nights’ Entertainments—set forth as by “Guy
Penseval.” Three years later appeared his chief work, Sylvia.
Notwithstanding its divers shortcomings, some of them frankly
acknowledged by the author himself, Sylvia is a creation of genuine
imagination, and possesses a haunting and quite distinctive charm. Both
the merits and demerits of his too often uncontrolled style are
adequately indicated in the criticism of Mr Ingram: “[frequently] his
wild Celtic fancy breaks its curb and carries him into clouds of
metaphor as marvellous as they are musical, although often the flight
ends by a hasty and undignified descent to commonplace earth.” There is
no commonplace, however, in his exquisite faëry verse, which, in the
words of the same critic, “is among the loveliest in the language; at
times is even sweeter than Drayton’s, and is as fantastic as
Shakespeare’s own.”
For ten years the poet kept silence; but in 1839 he issued his
fragmentary and extraordinary Nepenthe—a poem which, with all its
brilliant quality and daring richness of imagery, might well be taken as
an example of the Celtic genius in extremis—so unreservedly does he
give way to an uncontrolled imagination. Perhaps the best thing said
about Nepenthe is in a letter from the author himself, wherein he
writes:—“Does it not speak a heat of brain mentally Bacchic?”
Nothing that Darley published afterwards enhanced his reputation. Lovers
of his best work, however, should read the posthumous volume of his
“Poems” edited by R. and M. J. Livingstone—a rare volume, as it was
printed for private circulation. It contains some of the songs from an
unpublished lyrical drama called The Sea Bride; and it is from this
that the “Dirge,” quoted at page 104 in this book, comes. In this
posthumous collection also is included the following striking and
characteristic lyric:—
THE FALLEN STAR.
A star is gone! a star is gone!
There is a blank in Heaven,
One of the cherub choir has done
His airy course this even.
He sat upon the orb of fire
That hung for ages there,
And lent his music to the choir
That haunts the nightly air.
But when his thousand years are passed,
With a cherubic sigh
He vanished with his car at last,
For even cherubs die!
Hear how his angel brothers mourn—
The minstrels of the spheres—
Each chiming sadly in his turn
And dropping splendid tears.
The planetary sisters all
Join in the fatal song,
And weep this hapless brother’s fall
Who sang with them so long.
But deepest of the choral band
The Lunar Spirit sings,
And with a bass-according hand
Sweeps all her sullen strings.
From the deep chambers of the dome
Where sleepless Uriel lies,
His rude harmonic thunders come
Mingled with mighty sighs.
The thousand car-borne cherubim,
The wandering eleven,
All join to chant the dirge of him
Who fell just now from Heaven.
After a life of great intellectual activity, but of singular isolation
and of misanthropic unhappiness, George Darley died in London on the
23rd of November 1846, in his fifty-first year. For further information
as to the personality and writings of this strange, undeservedly
neglected, but unbalanced man of genius, the reader may be referred to
the delightful edition of Sylvia, with Introduction, by Mr John H.
Ingram, published by Mr J. M. Dent (1892).
AUBREY DE VERE.
PAGE 105-6
Mr Aubrey De Vere is one of the most scholarly poets of Ireland. All his
work is informed with a high and serious spirit; and though the bulk of
it is not distinctively Celtic, either in sentiment or utterance, not
even distinctively Irish, he has written some poems which are as dear to
Nationalists and Celticists as is almost any other verse by contemporary
poets. Mr Aubrey De Vere is the younger brother of Sir Stephen De Vere,
Bart. (the translator of Horace, and himself a poet of distinction), and
son of Aubrey De Vere, the poet friend of Wordsworth. He was born in
1814, and has lived most of his life, with long intervals in London and
in several parts of Europe, at his birthplace, Curragh Chase, Adare, Co.
Limerick. Among his most noteworthy writings are:—The Waldensees
(1842); The Search after Proserpine (1843); Poems (1853); The
Sisters (1861); The Infant Bridal: and other Poems (1864); Irish
Odes (1869); The Legends of St Patrick (1872); Alexander the Great,
a poetical drama (1874); and another drama, St Thomas of Canterbury
(1876); Antar and Zara: and other Poems (1877); Legends of the Saxon
Saints (1879); and The Foray of Queen Meave, based upon an ancient
Irish epic (1882). Since then Mr Aubrey De Vere has published a
Selection of his poems and one or two books of a religious nature. His
best prose work is to be found in his Essays chiefly on Poetry (1887),
and Essays chiefly Literary and Ethical (1889).
FRANCIS FAHY.
PAGE 107
Author of Irish Songs and Poems, published under the pseudonym
“Dreolin.” Mr Fahy is a member of the group of notable lyrists whose
captain is Sir Samuel Ferguson.
SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON. (1810-1886.)
PAGE 109
This celebrated poet and archæologist was born in Belfast. He has aptly
been called a man of encyclopædic learning; but this learning did not
prevent his becoming perhaps the foremost Irish poet of the Middle
Victorian period. His most ambitious poetic work is Congal: an Epic
Poem (1872)—a work full of lofty imagination and epical music, but
unfortunate in its metrical setting. His short poem, “The Forging of the
Anchor,” is one of the most celebrated and popular poems of our era.
Even yet, the influence of his Lays of the Western Gael (1865) is
considerable, and for good. “Cean Dubh Deelish” (darling dark head), of
which several able, and one or two good translations have been made,
finds its happiest interpreter in Ferguson. How many poets and lovers
have repeated these lines—
“Then put your head, darling, darling, darling,
Your darling black head my heart above;
Oh, mouth of honey, with thyme for fragrance,
Who, with heart in breast, could deny you love?”
PAGE 110
“Molly Asthore” is also a paraphrase. The original is ascribed to a
celebrated Irish Gaelic bard, Cormac O’Con.
PAGE 112
“The Fair Hills of Holy Ireland,” is familiar to Irish men and women in
every part of the world.
ALFRED PERCIVAL GRAVES.
PAGE 113
One of the best known names of Ireland of to-day. Mr Graves, born in
Dublin in 1846, is thoroughly national, and his delightful work is
perhaps as adequately typical of the Irish spirit as that of any one man
could be. His lyric faculty—or at any rate his movement, his verve—is
unsurpassed by any living Irishman. These few examples of his poetical
writings should win him many more readers. His first book, Songs of
Killarney, was published over twenty years ago. Since then he has
issued Irish Songs and Ballads, Songs of Old Ireland, and (1880) his
best known collection, Father O’Flynn: and other Irish Lyrics. Irish
Songs and Airs is the title of his promised contribution to Sir Gavan
Duffy’s Irish Library.
GERALD GRIFFIN. (1803-1840.)
PAGE 121
The author of the lovely song, “Eileen Aroon” (Nellie, my Darling), was
born in Limerick. His chief work is his novel, The Collegians, which
has been pronounced to be “the most perfect Irish novel published.” I
have heard that Tennyson once “went mooning about for days,” repeating
with endless gusto, and with frequent expressions of a wish that he was
the author of, the closing lines:—
Youth must with time decay,
Eileen Aroon!
Beauty must fade away,
Eileen Aroon!
Castles are sacked in war,
Chieftains are scattered far,
Truth is a fixèd star,
Eileen Aroon!
NORA HOPPER.
PAGE 123 ETC.
This young Irish poet made an immediate impression by her Ballads in
Prose (John Lane). Both in prose and verse she displays the true Celtic
note, and often the unmistakable Celtic intensity. The lovely lyrics
“April in Ireland,” and “The Wind among the Reeds,” are from Ballads in
Prose. “The Dark Man” has not hitherto appeared in print, and I am
indebted to Miss Hopper for her permission to quote it here. It is, I
understand, to be included in her shortly forthcoming volume, to be
published by Mr John Lane.
DOUGLAS HYDE, LL.D.
PAGE 126
Dr Hyde, one of the foremost living expositors of Gaelic folklore in
Ireland, was born about thirty-five years ago in the Co. Roscommon,
where he has since resided. He graduated at Trinity College, Dublin,
after an exceptionally brilliant University career. He is now President
of the Gaelic League, and one of the acknowledged leaders of the Gaelic
wing of the Celtic Renascence; but from the first he was in the front
rank of those who are working for the preservation of the ancient Irish
language and the rescue of its beautiful fugitive literature. Although
best known by his Irish Tales, taken down at first hand from the
peasantry, and other Folk-collections, and his invaluable and unique
The Love Songs of Connacht (Connaught), he is himself a poet of mark.
(See, also, Note XI., supra.) Those who are in a position to judge
declare his Gaelic poetry, which appears in the Irish Press above the
signature “An Chraoibhin Aoibhinn,” to be of altogether exceptional
excellence. The work Dr Douglas Hyde does deserves the most cordial
recognition. No man has worked more whole-heartedly, more
enthusiastically, and with more far-reaching success for the cause of
the Irish-Gaelic language, folk-lore, and literature, and, it may be
added, the best interests of the Irish of the soil.
The songs by which he is represented in this volume are from the Love
Songs of Connacht (Fisher Unwin, 1893), a book which is not only
indispensable to the Celtic scholar, but should be in the hands of every
lover of Celtic literature, old-time or new. All are translations,
though perhaps paraphrastic rather than metaphrastic. Both in their
music and in their intensity—in, also, their peculiar lyric lilt—they
are distinctively West Irish. The collection from which these poems are
drawn was issued as The Fourth Chapter of the Songs of Connacht. The
preceding three appeared in the now defunct Nation. They were all
originally written in Irish; but very wisely, or at any rate for us very
fortunately, Dr Hyde interpolated translations. In these he has
endeavoured to reproduce the vowel-rhymes as well as the exact metres of
the original poems. We must hope to see the reprint, in like fashion, of
the predecessors of this volume.
LIONEL JOHNSON.
PAGE 133
Though come of a Dublin family, and otherwise Irish by descent, Mr
Johnson was born at Broadstairs in Kent (1867). He first became known to
the reading public, as a poet, by his contributions to The Book of the
Rhymers’ Club, notable for their distinction of touch. Since then Mr
Johnson has published much in prose and verse, though in book form he
has not, I think, produced any other prose work than his admirable study
of Thomas Hardy, or any other volume of poetry than his Poems. His
work is not characterised by distinctively Celtic quality, though
occasionally, as in “The Red Wind” and “To Morfydd,” the Celtic note
makes itself audible. No doubt—to judge from internal evidence in his
later writings—Mr Johnson’s poetic work, at least, will develop more
and more along the line of his racial bent.
DENIS FLORENCE MACCARTHY. (1817-1882.)
PAGE 135
Mr Maccarthy, who was a barrister in Dublin, and one of the main
supports of the Nation, is best known by his fine translations of
Calderon’s Dramas. The “Lament,” by which he is here represented, has
always seemed to me his most haunting lyrical achievement. It is
necessary to add, however, that this poem is somewhat condensed from the
original—which is weakened by diffuseness. The score or so of lines
beginning “As fire-flies fade,” have been favourites with many poets of
Maccarthy’s own time and later.
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN. (1803-1849.)
PAGE 137
While it is not the case, as sometimes averred, that Mangan was, or is,
to Ireland what Burns is to Scotland, it is indisputable that the claim
may be made for him rather than for any other Irish poet of the Early
Victorian period. In fire and energy his faculty is unsurpassed by any
of his poetic countrymen, though we may dispute Sir Charles Gavan
Duffy’s assertion that Mangan “has not, and perhaps never had, any rival
in mastery of the metrical and rhythmical resources of the English
tongue.” Mangan was the child of a small tradesman of Dublin, where, in
1803, he was born. From childhood, fate dealt hardly with him. Abandoned
in his early boyhood, he was indebted to a relative for his education;
but when, in his fifteenth year, he became a copyist in a lawyer’s
office, at a small pittance, his kindred discovered him and compelled
him to share his meagre gains with them. For ten years thereafter he
toiled in this bitter bondage. In his own words:—“I was obliged to work
seven years of the ten from five in the morning, winter and summer, to
eleven at night; and during the three remaining years, nothing but a
special Providence could have saved me from suicide.” No wonder that,
from an early period in his life, he found relief from his misery in
drink; but it was misery and unbroken ill-fortune and adversity, much
more than the curse of his fatal habit, that really killed him. There is
a period in his life which is a blank, “a blank into which he entered a
bright-haired youth and emerged a withered and stricken man.” His first
chance for a happier life came with his appointment to a minor post in
the University Library of Dublin, and it was during this time that most
of his best work was done. His highest level is reached in his
brilliant free paraphrases of German originals: Anthologia Germania
(1845). His later years were darkened by the worst phases of his malady,
and he died (as in most part he had lived, in misery and poverty) in
Meath Hospital, in his forty-seventh year. He has written one lyric that
Irishmen will always account immortal: “Dark Rosaleen”—a wild and
passionate rhapsody on Ireland herself. “Dark Rosaleen,” “Silk of the
Kine,” “The Little Black Rose,” “Kathleen Ny Houlahan”—these were at
one time the familiar analogues of Ireland. Of his Oriental paraphrases
the most stirring is “The Karamanian Exile.” Strangely enough, Mangan’s
Irish renderings are less happy than those poems which he based upon
German and Oriental originals; but sometimes, as in the beautiful “Fair
Hills of Eiré, O!” after the Irish of Donough mac Con-Mara, he has
bequeathed a memorable lyric. Of poems that are strictly original,
nothing seems to me more characteristic of Mangan than “The One Mystery”
(see p. 142).
ROSA MULHOLLAND.
PAGE 144
This accomplished prose-writer and poet was born in Belfast. Since her
Vagrant Verses (1886) she has published many stories and poems, and is
a regular contributor to the leading Irish periodicals. Her “Fionnula”
is one of the happiest renderings of the legend of the Swan Daughters of
Lir; but is too long for quotation in the text. “The Wild Geese,” by
which she is represented here, is eminently characteristic. Her latest
poem, and one of her best, appears under the title “Under a Purple
Cloud” in the autumn number of The Evergreen. It is a vision of Earth
personified, and opens thus:
Under a purple cloud along the west
The great brown mother lies and takes her rest,
A dark cheek on her hand, and in her eyes
The shadow of primeval mysteries.
Her tawny velvets swathe her, manifold,
Her mighty head is coifed in filmy gold,
Her youngest babe, the newly-blossomed rose
Upon her swarthy bosom feeds and grows.
With her wide darkling gaze the mother sees
Her children in their homes, the reddening trees,
Roofing wet lawns, fruit-laden lattices,
Blue mountain domes, and the grey river-seas.
THE HON. RODEN NOËL. (1834-1894.)
PAGE 146
Mr Roden Noël was son of the first Earl of Gainsborough, grandson of
Lord Roden of Tullymore in Ireland, and nephew to the present Marquis of
Londonderry. By birth, descent, training, and sympathy, he considered
himself an Irishman: though he was half English by blood, and lived the
greater part of his life in England, while his intellectual homage was
largely evoked by Hellenic mythology and lore, and by Teutonic mysticism
and speculation. It was this confused blending of influences which,
perhaps, militated so strongly against the concentration of his
brilliant abilities into long-sustained and organic creative effort.
With all his shortcomings, he still remains a poet of genuine impulse
and occasionally of high distinction; and some of his lyrics and
ballads, of a more essentially human interest than his more ambitious
work, are likely to be held in honourable remembrance. The “Lament for a
Little Child” (see p. 146) has passed into literature; as, indeed, may
perhaps be said of the book whence it comes: A Little Child’s Monument
(1881). In one of his Cornish poems he begins thus:—
“For me, true son of Erin, thou art rife,
Grand coast of Cornwall, cliff, and cave, and surge,
With glamour of the Kelt.”
I do not think there is much “glamour of the Kelt” in Roden Noël’s work,
but it may be discerned in one or two poems in each of his volumes, and
in many of his lyrics and irregular lyrical compositions there is much
of Celtic intensity and dream. Few poets have written of the sea with
more loving knowledge and profound sympathy; hence it is that he is
represented here by one characteristic sea-poem, called “The
Swimmer”—as autobiographical as anything of the kind can be. The
swimmer’s joy was Roden Noël’s chief physical delight. All who knew the
man himself remember him as one of the personalities of his time, and as
a man of individual distinction and charm. Besides the book already
mentioned, his chief poetic volumes are Beatrice and Other Poems
(1868); Songs of the Heights and Deeps (1885); and A Modern Faust
(1888). See also the Selection from his poems published in the
Canterbury Poets Series (edited, with a Critical Introduction, by Mr
Robert Buchanan), and the posthumous volumes My Sea and Selected
Lyrics (Elkin Mathews).
CHARLES P. O’CONOR.
PAGE 158
Besides this typical Irish song, Mr O’Conor has written other winsome
lyrics of the same kind. One of the best is that called “Erinn”
beginning—
“O, a lovely place is Erinn, in the summer of the year,
Roseen dhu ma Erinn.”
This and “Maura Du of Ballyshannon” are from his Songs of a Life
(Kentish Mercury Office, 1875).
JOHN FRANCIS O’DONNELL.
PAGE 160
This pretty Spinning Song is characteristic of the always deft and
generally delicate and winsome lyrical writing of Mr Francis O’Donnell.
JOHN BOYLE O’REILLY.
PAGE 161
This prolific writer, often designated an Irish-American poet, through
the accident of his enforced exile to, and long residence in, the United
States, is inadequately represented by the brief lyric, “A White Rose”;
but it is significant of his best achievement, for he is always at his
happiest in brief, spontaneous lyrics, often in a Heinesque vein. John
Boyle O’Reilly was born at Dowth Castle in Ireland. In his early manhood
he enlisted in a hussar regiment; and it was while as a hussar that he
was arrested on the charge of spreading republican principles in the
ranks, and was sentenced to be shot. This sentence was commuted to
twenty years of penal servitude; when the unfortunate man, victim of
that disastrous as well as iniquitous tyranny which has characterised
the English official attitude towards the Celtic populations, was taken
to the convict settlements of Western Australia. Thence, in time, he
escaped, and after hairbreadth escapes reached Philadelphia. From there
he went to Boston, where he settled; and in a few years, by virtue of
his remarkable gifts as a poet, a prose-writer, and a brilliant
journalist, became an acknowledged power in trans-Atlantic literature. A
novel of his, Moondyne, is widely and deservedly celebrated. Of his
poetical works, the best are Songs of the Southern Seas, Songs,
Legends, and Ballads, and In Bohemia.
ARTHUR O’SHAUGHNESSY. (1844-1881.)
PAGE 162
O’Shaughnessy is to be ranked as an English rather than as an Irish
poet; for the national sentiment played a minor, indeed hardly a
perceptible part in his poetic life. The Celtic part of him found its
best expression in his translations of the Lays of Marie
(particularly the difficult and extraordinary “Bisclaveret”), powerful
paraphrases rather than translations. The poem by which he is
represented here shows the influence of Edgar Allan Poe, but is founded
upon a Celtic legend. In his early youth he was appointed to a
subordinate position in the Library of the British Museum, and was
afterwards promoted to the Natural History Department. His first
literary success was his Epic of Women (1870), a volume of exceptional
promise, which, however, was never adequately fulfilled. His Lays of
France (1872) was followed by Music and Moonlight (1874) and a
posthumous volume, Songs of a Worker (1881). Always delicate, his
death without any previous breakdown surprised none of his friends. I
recollect that on the Saturday preceding his death, which I think was on
a Wednesday, he came into the rooms of his brother-in-law, and
fellow-poet and friend, Philip Bourke Marston, and asked me to come to
his residence on the following Wednesday, to hear him read from the
proofs of his new book. That evening he went to a theatre, came home on
the top of an omnibus, caught a chill, and died before any of his
friends knew that he was seriously indisposed. The best critical and
biographical accounts of this charming if insubstantial poet, are to be
found in Dr Garnett’s memoir in Miles’ Poets and Poetry of the
Century, Vol. VIII., and in the biographical edition of his poems
recently put forth by Mrs Louise Chandler Moulton. Of the poem here
given, Dr Garnett speaks as a “miracle of melody,” and as one of the
pieces in which “the poet’s inward nature has perhaps most clearly
expressed itself.”
FANNY PARNELL. (1855-1883.)
PAGE 165
A remarkable poem by a remarkable woman. Frances Isabelle Parnell was
the sister of Charles Stewart Parnell, and grand-daughter of Charles
Stewart (from whom the great Irish patriot derived his baptismal names),
the historic commander of the U.S. Frigate Constitution. Miss
Parnell’s poems, which always appeared above the signature of Fanny
Parnell, have not yet been published collectively. She was secretary of
the Ladies’ Land League, and was as intensely wrought by the fervour of
patriotism as was her famous brother.
T. W. ROLLESTON.
PAGE 166
The sometime editor of the Dublin University Review, and one of the
most valued present members of the Irish Literary Society, was born at
Shinrone, King’s County, in 1857. Mr Rolleston has had a cosmopolitan
training since he left Trinity College, and has in particular been
influenced by his long residence in Germany; but he has remained a
Celtic poet and ardent Celticist through every intellectual development.
While resident in Germany and in London, he wrote his Life of Lessing
and his introductions to Epictetus and Plato. He is now responsibly
connected with the Irish Industries Association, but is more and not
less engrossed by his Celtic studies. If there were a few more
poet-scholars who could translate or paraphrase so beautifully as Mr
Rolleston has paraphrased the Irish of Enoch o’ Gillan (see p. 166) and
other poems, there would be a wider public in England for the lovely
work of early Irish poetry. “The Lament of Queen Maev,” given here in
the Ancient Irish section, is also a translation by Mr Rolleston.
DORA SIGERSON.
PAGE 167
This young and promising writer comes of poetic stock. Her sister Hester
is also a writer of verse, and her father, Dr Sigerson, is one of the
foremost workers in the Gaelic Revival. Miss Dora Sigerson’s only
published book as yet bears the modest title Verses. It is, perhaps,
more significant in its promise than in its achievement; and I find
nothing in it so mature as the poem by which she is represented here,
taken from a recent issue of the Chap Book (Stone & Kimball, Chicago).
The following lines, from Verses, may be given as an example of her
poetic first-fruits:—
In southern seas we sailed, my love and I,
In southern seas.
Death joined no chorus as the waves swept by,
No storm hid in the breeze.
Low keeled our boat until her white wings dipped half wet with spray,
And seeking gulls tossed on the passing wave laughed on our way,
The rhyme of sound, the harmony of souls—of silence too;
Your silence held my thoughts, my love, as mine of you;
The wingèd whispering wind that blew our sails was summer sweet—
I found my long-sought paradise crouched at thy feet.
In northern seas I weep alone, alone,
In winter seas.
Death’s hounds are on the waves, with many moans
Death’s voice comes with the breeze,
My helpless boat, rocked in the wind, obeys no steadfast hand,
Her swinging helm and ashing sheet have lost my weak command;
The shrieking sea-birds seek the sheltering shore,
The writhing waves leap upward, and their hoar
Strong hands tear at the timbers of my shuddering craft.
I cry in vain, the Fates have seen and laughed,
Time and the world have stormed my summer sea—
I ate my fruit, the serpent held the tree.
DR GEORGE SIGERSON.
PAGE 168
The distinguished translator and editor of The Poets and Poetry of
Munster was born near Strabane, Co. Tyrone, in 1839. Much of his
original work has appeared above his Irish pen-name “Erionnach”; and
from first to last Dr Sigerson’s name is indissolubly associated with
the wide-reaching Celtic Renascence in Ireland.
DR JOHN TODHUNTER.
PAGE 170
One of the foremost contemporary poets of Ireland, was born in Dublin in
1839, and, like so many of his literary compatriots, was educated at
Trinity. He then pursued his medical studies in Paris and Vienna;
returned to Dublin and practised awhile as a physician; succeeded Prof.
Dowden as Professor of English Literature in Alexandria College; and,
since 1875, has devoted himself exclusively to literature. Some of his
lyrical pieces are known to all lovers of poetry—e.g. “The Banshee”;
and for the rest he has won a distinctive place for himself by work at
once varied in theme and beautiful in treatment. Though he has won
deserved reputation as a playwright for the contemporary stage, as well
as in the poetic drama, he seems to me to be at his best when most
Celtic in feeling and expression. He is represented here, not by pieces
so well known as “The Banshee” or any part of The Three Sorrows of
Story-Telling, but by two typical Irish poems, and one lovely fragment
(see p. 173) from Forest Songs. Personally, I consider the “Love Song”
given at page 170 to be one of the finest compositions of its kind in
modern Celtic literature. I have regretfully refrained from quoting two
other poems by Dr Todhunter, one familiar to every Irishman, “The Shan
Van Vocht of ’87,” beginning—
There’s a spirit in the air,
Says the Shan Van Vocht,
And her voice is everywhere,
Says the Shan Van Vocht;
Though her eyes be full of care,
Even as Hope’s, born of Despair,
Her sweet face looks young and fair,
Says the Shan Van Vocht.—
and the other, which I think the strongest of his short lyrical poems,
“Aghadoe”—of which I may give the two concluding quatrains—
I walked to Mallow town from Aghadoe, Aghadoe;
Brought his head from the gaol’s gate to Aghadoe,
Then I covered him with fern, and I piled on him the cairn,
Like an Irish king he sleeps in Aghadoe.
Oh! to creep into that cairn in Aghadoe, Aghadoe!
There to rest upon his breast in Aghadoe,
Sure your dog for you could die with no truer heart than I,
Your own love, cold on your cairn, in Aghadoe.
KATHERINE TYNAN.
PAGE 174
The author of Louise de la Vallière (1885), Shamrocks (1887),
Ballads and Lyrics (1891), and later volumes in prose as well as
verse, is one of the best known representatives of the Irish poetic
fellowship. Mrs Hinkson (though best known by her maiden name) is
distinctively Irish rather than Celtic, and pre-eminently a Catholicist
in the spirit of her work. She has a St Francis-like love of birds and
all defenceless creatures and humble things, and has a most happy lyric
faculty in dealing with aspects and objects which excite her rhythmic
emotion. In lyric quality and in her all-pervading sense of colour, she
is, however, characteristically Celtic. Miss Tynan was born in Dublin in
1861, but since her marriage a few years ago to Mr Hinkson (himself one
of the Dublin University Young Ireland men) she has resided in or near
London. Some of her work has a lyric ecstasy, of a kind which
distinguishes it from the poetry of any other woman-writer of to-day.
CHARLES WEEKES.
PAGE 179
Mr Weekes is one of the small band of Irish poet-dreamers who may be
particularly associated with Mr W. B. Yeats and Mr G. W. Russell
(“A.E.”). His book, Reflections and Refractions, contains fine
achievement as well as noteworthy promise.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS.
PAGE 181
Born (of an Irish father, and of a Cornish mother come of a family
settled in Ireland) at Sandymount, Dublin, in 1866; but early life
chiefly spent in Sligo, and on the Connaught seaboard. Of late years, Mr
Yeats has passed much of his time in London, but is never absent from
Ireland for any long period—
“... for always night and day
I hear lake-water lapping with low sounds on the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.”
W. B. Yeats is the prince of contemporary Irish poets. While no one is
more essentially Celtic, and none is more distinctively national, his
poetry belongs to English literature. Mr Yeats himself would be the last
man to nail his flag to the mast of parochialism in literature. He is
one of the two or three absolutely poetic personalities in literature at
the present moment; and in outlook, and, above all, in atmosphere,
stands foremost in the younger generation. It is noteworthy that the two
most convincingly poetic of all our younger poets, since the giants who
(with the exception of George Meredith, A. C. Swinburne, and William
Morris) have gone from our midst, are predominantly Celtic; W. B. Yeats
and John Davidson—and noteworthy, also, that both are too wise, too
clear-sighted, too poetic, in fact, to aim at being Irish or
Scoto-Celtic at the expense of being English in the high and best sense
of the word. This, fortunately, is consistent with being paramountly
national in all else. In the world of literature there is no geography
save that of the mind.
Mr Yeats’ poetic work is best to be read, and perhaps best to be
enjoyed, in the revised collective edition of his poems, in one volume,
published recently by Mr Fisher Unwin. His first volume of verse, The
Wanderings of Oisìn, was published in 1889. This was followed (in 1892)
by The Countess Kathleen: and Various Legends and Lyrics; The Land of
Heart’s Desire, and two short prose tales (in the Pseudonym Library),
John Sherman and Dhoya. Two new books are promised in 1896 (through
Mr Elkin Mathews), The Shadowy Waters (a poetic play), and The Wind
Among the Reeds (poems). He has also published several volumes of
selected Irish tales and legendary lore; edited, in conjunction with Mr
E. J. Ellis, the Works of William Blake (3 vols., 1893); and A Book
of Irish Verse (Methuen, 1895), an interesting rather than an
adequately representative anthology of nationalistic Irish poetry. All
that is most distinctive in Mr Yeats’ own original work is to be found
in his Poems (Collective Edition, in 1 vol., Fisher Unwin, 1895), and
the prose volume entitled The Celtic Twilight (Lawrence & Bullen,
1893), one of the most fascinating prose-books by a poet published in
our time.
THE PROLOGUE TO GAUL.
PAGE 189
Comes from the Sean Dana: vide Dr John Smith’s Collection of
Ancient Poems (1780), (vide Note to page 13 supra, and also
Introduction).
IN HEBRID SEAS.
PAGE 191
This stirring Hebridean poem is given as from the ancient Gaelic.
Probably by this is meant merely old Gaelic, mediæval or even later. The
translation is by Mr Thomas Pattison, and is included in his Gaelic
Bards. He has the following note upon it: “This effusion, although in
its original form it is only a kind of wild chant—almost indeed half
prose—yet it is the germ of the ballad. It occurs in many of the tales
contained in that collection, the repository of old Gaelic lore, the
Popular Tales of the West Highlands, sometimes more and sometimes less
perfect. The original will be found in the second volume of the
Tales.... The vigorous and elastic spirit that pervades these verses
must have strung the heart of many a hardy mariner who loved to feel the
fresh and briny breeze drive his snoring birlinn bounding like a living
creature over the tumbling billows of the inland loch or the huge swell
of the majestic main.”
LULLABY.
PAGE 193
Supposed to be the composition of the wife of Gregor MacGregor after the
judicial murder of her husband.
DROWNED.
PAGE 194
This folk-poem, the antiquity of which may be anywhere from a hundred to
two hundred years or more, is given in the translation of the Rev. Dr
Stewart of Nether Lochaber.
ALEXANDER MACDONALD.
PAGE 195
This celebrated Gaelic poet was born in the first half of the 17th
century. In the Highlands and Western Isles he is invariably styled Mac
Mhaighstir Alastair—i.e. the son of Mr Alexander. Alastair the Elder
resided at Dalilea in Moydart of Argyll, and was both Episcopal
clergyman and official tacksman. He was a man of immense strength and
vigour, and his muscular Christianity may be inferred from the saying
current in Moydart that “his hand was heavier on the men of Suainart
than on the men of Moydart.” Alexander Macdonald had a good education
for his time—first under his father, and later, for a year or so, at
Glasgow University. Poverty, however, compelled him to leave Glasgow and
retire to Ardnamurchan, where, as his biographer, Mr Pattison, says, he
lived, teaching and farming, and composing poetry, until the advent of
the year 1745. In this momentous year he left not only his farm and his
teaching, but even his eldership in the Established Church, and forsook
all to join Prince Charlie, and to take upon him the onus of a change to
the detested Roman Catholic faith. He was a Jacobite of the Jacobites,
and his fiery and warlike songs were repeated from mouth to mouth
throughout Celtic Scotland. It is supposed that he had a commission in
the Highland army of the Prince, though whether he served as an officer
is uncertain; at any rate, after the battle of Culloden he had to share
the privations of his leaders, and he lived in hiding in the woods and
caves of the district of Arisaig. On one occasion, when lurking among
these caves with his brother Angus, the cold was so intense that the
side of Macdonald’s head which rested on the ground became quite grey in
a single night. When the troubles were over he went to Edinburgh, where
he taught the children of a staunch Jacobite, but soon returned to his
beloved West, where he remained till his death. Macdonald’s first
published book was a Gaelic and English Vocabulary (1741), nor was it
till ten years later that his poems were published in Edinburgh—said to
be one of the earliest volumes of original poems ever published in
Gaelic. Pattison declares that he is the most warlike, and much the
fiercest of the Highland poets; and altogether ranks him as, if not the
foremost, certainly second only to the famous Duncan Bàn MacIntyre. His
poem called “The Birlinn of the Clan-Ranald” is by this critic, and most
others, ranked as the finest composition in Modern Gaelic; certainly
many Highlanders prefer it even to the “Coire Cheathaich,” or the still
more famous “Ben Dorain” of Duncan Bàn. Assuredly no one could read this
poem “Of the hurling of the birlinn through the cold glens of the sea,
loudly snoring,” without being stirred by its vigour and power. The
portion here given is merely a fragment, for the original is much too
long for quotation—indeed, it is said to be the longest poem in Gaelic,
except such as are Ossianic. For a full account of Macdonald and his
poems, including the translation of the greater part of “The Manning of
the Birlinn,” see Pattison’s Gaelic Bards.
ANGUS MACKENZIE.
PAGE 201
“The Lament of the Deer” is the work of a favourite Highland poet whose
name is particularly familiar in the Northern Highlands. Angus Mackenzie
was head forester of Lord Lovat, and most of his poems have the impress
of his well-loved profession. “The Cumha nam Fiadh” was composed during
the recovery from a severe illness, when the poet’s chief regret was his
inability to be with Lovat and his Frasers at the hunting of the stag.
The translation here given was made by Charles Edward and John Sobieski
Stuart, and is to be found in their Lays of the Deer Forest
(Blackwood, 1848).
DUNCAN BÀN MACINTYRE.
PAGE 203
A name loved throughout the Highlands and Islands. Even the most
illiterate crofters are familiar with Duncan Bàn and much of his poetry,
and there are few who could not repeat at least some lines of “Ben
Dorain.” The Hunter Bard of Glenorchy, as he is often called—though his
best title is the affectionate Gaelic “Duncan of the Songs”—was born on
the 20th of March 1724, at Druimliaghart in Glenorchy, Argyll. His first
song was composed on a sword with which he was armed at the battle of
Falkirk—where he served on the Royalist side as substitute for a
gentleman of the neighbourhood. “This sword,” says his biographer,
Thomas Pattison, “the poet lost or threw away in the retreat. On his
return home therefore, the gentleman to whom it belonged, and whose
substitute he had been, refused to pay the sum for which he had engaged
Duncan Bàn to serve in his stead. Duncan consequently composed his song
on ‘The Battle of the Speckled Kirk’—as Falkirk is called in Gaelic—in
which he good-humouredly satirised the gentleman who had sent him to the
war, and gave a woful description of ‘the black sword that worked the
turmoil,’ and whose loss, he says, made its owner ‘as fierce and furious
as a grey brock in his den.’ The song immediately became popular, and
incensed his employer so much that he suddenly fell upon the poor poet
one day with his walking-stick, and, striking him on the back, bade him
‘go and make a song about that.’ He was, however, afterward compelled by
the Earl of Breadalbane to pay the bard the sum of 300 merks Scots (£16,
17s. 6d.), which was his legal due.” Although in his later years he was
for a time one of the Duke of Argyll’s foresters, most of his later
life was spent in Edinburgh, where he was one of the City Guard. In that
city he died in 1812, in his eighty-ninth year, and lies in Greyfriars
Churchyard. In all there have been seven editions of his Gaelic Songs.
“Ben Dorain” has been translated several times, most successfully by
Thomas Pattison and the late Professor Blackie. The version here given
is that of the former; while the following poem (“The Hill Water,” page
208) is that of Professor Blackie.
Translations of both “Ben Dorain” (in full) and of “Coire Cheathaich”
(The Misty Corrie) are included in Pattison’s Gaelic Bards. Professor
Blackie’s version of “Ben Dorain” is in his well-known book, Altavona.
MARY MACLEOD.
PAGE 210
The most famous of Hebridean poets was born in Harris of the Outer
Hebrides in 1569. She may be regarded either as the last of the poets of
the Middle Scoto-Celtic period, or, more properly, as the first of the
moderns. She is generally spoken of in the Western Isles as Màiri
nighean Alastair Ruaidh (Mary, daughter of Alexander the Red). “Although
she could never either read or write, her poetry is pure and chaste in
its diction, melodious, though complicated, in its metre, clear and
graceful, and frequently pathetic” (Pattison). She died at Dunvegan, in
the Isle of Skye, in 1674, at the great age of 105. For some reason,
Mary Macleod was banished from Dunvegan by Macleod of Macleod, but his
heart was melted by the song here given, and the exile was recalled, and
that, too, with honour, and enabled to live in Macleod’s country
thenceforth in prosperity and happiness.
MONALTRI.
PAGE 217
These lines tell their own tale. The translation given is that of Thomas
Pattison.
HIGHLAND LULLABY.
PAGE 218
This lullaby first appeared in the Duanaire, edited by D. C.
Macpherson (1864). It is supposed to be sung by a disconsolate mother
whose babe has been stolen by the fairies. In each verse she mentions
some impossible task she has performed, but still she has not found her
baby. Coineachan is a term of endearment applied to a child. (Quoted
by “Fionn” in the Celtic Monthly for September 1893.)
BOAT SONG.
PAGE 219
This boat song, so familiar to West Highlanders, is in the rendering of
Professor Blackie.
JOHN STUART BLACKIE. (1809-1895.)
PAGE 222
The late Professor Blackie was born in Glasgow and brought up for the
law. This he forsook for literature, and ultimately, in 1852, was
appointed to the Greek Chair in Edinburgh University. All particulars of
the brilliant Professor’s life and writings will be found in the
recently-published biography by Miss Anna Stoddart. Professor Blackie’s
name will always be held in affectionate regard for his unselfish
efforts to preserve and cultivate the Gaelic language and literature,
and because of his having been mainly instrumental in founding the Chair
of Celtic Literature in the University of Edinburgh. His poetical
writings are mostly to be found in Lays and Legends of Ancient Greece
(1857), Lyrical Poems (1860), and Lays of the Highlands and Islands
(1872).
ROBERT BUCHANAN.
PAGE 224
The foremost Scoto-Celtic poet of our time, was born in Glasgow, 1841.
It would be needless to give particulars concerning the life and work of
so eminent a contemporary. Lovers of the Celtic Muse will doubtless be
familiar (or if not, ought to be) with Mr Buchanan’s Book of Orm. Much
of his early poetry is strongly imbued with the Celtic atmosphere. Those
who have read his several volumes of verse need no further guidance, but
readers unacquainted with the poetical work of one of the foremost poets
of our day should obtain the collective edition of his poems published
by Messrs Chatto & Windus. “The Flower of the World” (page 224), “The
Dream of the World without Death” (pages 228-234) are from The Book of
Orm; “The Strange Country” comes from Miscellaneous Poems and Ballads
(1878-1883). No more memorable poem than “The Dream” has been written by
an Anglo-Celtic poet.
LORD BYRON. (1788-1824.)
PAGES 238-239
Byron is represented in Lyra Celtica by virtue of his Celtic blood and
undoubtedly Celtic nature, rather than because there is much trace of
Celtic influence in his poetry. The two lyrics given here may be taken
as fairly representative of that part of his poetical work which may
with some reason be called Celtic, though, of course, there is nothing
in them which radically differentiates them from the lyrics of any
English poet. More than one eminent critic, foreign as well as British,
has claimed for Byron that he was the representative Celtic voice of the
early part of the century; but Byron was really much more the voice of
his own day and time than anything more restricted.
CRODH CHAILLEAN.
PAGE 240
This familiar Highland Milking Song is given in the translation of Dr
Alexander Stewart of Nether Lochaber.
MACCRIMMON’S LAMENT.
PAGE 241
Perhaps the most famous pipe-tune in the Highlands is the “Cumha mhic
Criomein,” composed by Donald Bàn MacCrimmon, on the occasion of the
Clan MacLeod, headed by their chief, embarking to join the Royalists in
1746. The Lament is said to have been composed by Donald Bàn under the
influence of a presentiment that he as well as many others of the clan
would never return; a presentiment fulfilled, for he was killed in a
skirmish near Moyhall. The tune and the chorus are old, but it is
commonly believed the poem was composed by Dr Norman Macleod; at any
rate, they first appeared in a Gaelic article on the MacCrimmons, which
he contributed in 1840 to “Cuairtear nan Gleann” (“Fionn,” the Celtic
Monthly). The translation here given is that of Professor Blackie.
IAN CAMERON (“IAN MOR”).
PAGE 242
Translated from the Gaelic by Miss Fiona Macleod.
JOHN DAVIDSON.
PAGE 243
Mr Davidson was born at Barrhead, near Paisley, on April 11th, 1857.
After his preliminary education at the Highlanders’ Academy, Greenock,
he went to Edinburgh University. For a time he taught in Greenock, and
also gained a certain amount of literary experience in occasional
contributions to the Glasgow Herald and other papers. In 1886 he
published Bruce: a Drama, followed by Smith: a Tragedy (1888),
Scaramouch in Naxos: and other Places (1889), In a Music Hall, and
other Poems (1891), Fleet Street Eclogues (1893), Ballads and Songs
(1894), Second Series of Fleet Street Eclogues (1895), besides several
volumes of prose papers and fiction. Although Bruce was Mr Davidson’s
first published work, he had begun to write at a much earlier period:
his An Historical Pastoral was composed in 1877; A Romantic Farce in
1878; while Bruce was written four years before its publication. Mr
Davidson’s later poetical writings have been mainly in the form of songs
and lyrical ballads, and these have placed him in the foremost rank of
the younger poets of to-day. He has the widest range, the largest
manner, and the intensest note of any of the later Victorians. The two
poems by which he is represented here are eminently characteristic, and
none the less Celtic in their essential quality from the fact that the
one deals with a loafer of the London streets and the other with a
scenic rendering of an impression gained in Romney Marsh. Mr Davidson’s
latest writings are “The Ballad of an Artist’s Wife,” not as yet issued
in book form, and the just published second series of the Fleet Street
Eclogues (John Lane). Both “A Loafer” and “In Romney Marsh” are from
Ballads and Songs.
JEAN GLOVER. (1758-1800.)
PAGE 246
The author of “O’er the Muir amang the Heather” was the daughter of a
Highland weaver settled in Kilmarnock. She married a strolling actor,
and her fugitive songs became familiar throughout the West of Scotland.
“O’er the Muir amang the Heather” has become a classic.
GEORGE MACDONALD.
PAGE 247
This popular Scottish novelist and poet was born at Huntly, in
Aberdeenshire, December 10, 1824. As a novelist he has almost as large
an audience as have any of his contemporary romancists. His poems are
less widely known, though in them he has expressed himself with great
variety and subtlety. The Celtic element is not conspicuous in Dr
Macdonald’s work either in prose or verse; but sometimes, as in the
little song “Oimè,” quoted here, it finds adequate expression. This song
is from his early volume Within and Without.
RONALD CAMPBELL MACFIE.
PAGE 249
The author of Granite Dust (Kegan Paul) is one of the most promising
of the younger Celtic Scots.
WILLIAM MACDONALD.
PAGE 250
One of the band of young writers associated with The Evergreen
(Patrick Geddes and Colleagues, Edinburgh). Mr Macdonald has not yet
issued his poems in book form.
AMICE MACDONELL.
PAGE 251
Miss Macdonell has not, so far as I know, published a volume. “Culloden
Moor” appeared in the Celtic Monthly in June 1893.
ALICE C. MACDONELL.
PAGE 252
Miss Alice Macdonell of Keppoch has contributed many poems to Scottish
and other periodicals. “The Weaving of the Tartan” appeared in the
Celtic Monthly for December 1894.
WILLIAM MACGILLIVRAY. (1796-1852.)
PAGE 254
The author of “The Thrush’s Song” was not a poet, but occasionally
indulged in the pleasure of verse-making. He was a well-known Highland
ornithologist, and it may be added that his attempt at an onomatopoeic
rendering of the song of the thrush has been pronounced by Buckland and
other ornithologists to be remarkably close.
FIONA MACLEOD.
PAGE 255
Miss Macleod is one of the younger writers most intimately associated
with the Celtic Renascence in Scotland. “The Prayer of Women” (see page
255) is from Pharais: a Romance of the Isles (Frank Murray, Derby,
1894); “The Rune of Age” and “A Gaelic Milking Song” are from The
Mountain Lovers (John Lane); the “Lullaby” and the two songs of Ethlenn
Stuart are from her last volume, The Sin-Eater: and other Tales
(Patrick Geddes and Colleagues, Edinburgh). “The Closing Doors” has not
been published hitherto. The brief lyric, “The Sorrow of Delight,” was
contributed to an as yet unpublished fantastic sketch, The Merchant of
Dreams, written in collaboration with a friend. Such of the poems
scattered through her several volumes, and others, as she wishes to
preserve in connected form, will be published by Miss Macleod early in
1896 (Patrick Geddes and Colleagues), under the title of Lyric Runes
and Fonnsheen.
NORMAN MACLEOD.
PAGE 266
There is no Highlander held in more affectionate remembrance and
admiration than the late Dr Norman Macleod: and with justice; for no one
worked more arduously, understandingly, and sympathetically for the
cause of the Gaelic language, Gaelic literature, and the Gaelic people
than the famous poet-minister, who, to this day, is commonly spoken of
as “The Great Norman.” It was, however, Dr Norman the elder who wrote
“Fiunary,”—and not, as commonly stated, the late Dr Norman. His
“Farewell to Fiunary” is probably the most universally-known modern poem
in the West Highlands. (For critical remarks as to the authenticity of
this poem, see Dr Nigel M‘Neil’s Literature of the Highlanders, pp.
283-286.)
SARAH ROBERTSON MATHESON.
PAGE 267
Mrs Robertson Matheson, some of whose poems in periodicals have
attracted the attention of lovers of poetry, is chief secretary and
treasurer of the Clan Donnachaidh Society. The fine lyric, “A Kiss of
the King’s Hand,” appeared in the Celtic Monthly for May 1894; but I
regret that version has inadvertently been followed, for it twice
misspells tae for “to,” and in the third line of the third quatrain
has a misreading (“jewels” instead of “ruffles”).
It may interest many readers to know that “A Kiss of the King’s Hand”
decided the descendant of Flora Macdonald to leave Mrs Robertson
Matheson the last heirloom of Scottish romance, the “ring of French
gold” given by Prince Charlie to Flora, and holding the lock of hair cut
from “the king’s head” by her and her mother.
DUGALD MOORE.
PAGE 268
“The First Ship” is so remarkable a poem that it is difficult to
understand how it has met with so little recognition, and escaped most,
if not all, of the Scottish and British anthologists. Dugald Moore was
the son of Highland parents, and was born in Glasgow in 1805. His first
book was entitled The Bard of the North, and consisted of a series of
poetical tales illustrative of Highland scenery and character (1833).
The Hour of Retribution and The Devoted One appeared respectively in
1835 and 1839. Moore died unmarried in the 36th year of his age (Jan. 2,
1841), and was buried in the Necropolis of Glasgow. It is a pity that
the poem could not have appeared without its fourth stanza, which is
inferior to the others.
LADY CAROLINE NAIRNE. (1766-1845.)
PAGE 269
Needless to say anything here concerning the “Flower of Strathearn.”
Baroness Nairne was mainly Celtic in blood and wholly Celtic in genius.
“The Land o’ the Leal” is now one of the most famous and most loved
lyrics in the English language. (Readers may be referred to Life and
Songs of Baroness Nairne, 1868.)
ALEXANDER NICOLSON.
PAGE 270
Besides this fine poem, “On Skye,” Sheriff Nicolson has translated the
“Birlinn” of Alexander Macdonald, and has written many moving verses
full of Gaelic sentiment of a robust kind.
SIR NOËL PATON.
PAGE 272
Joseph Noël Paton was born at Dunfermline on the 13th of December 1821;
and while his father was also of partial Celtic origin, Sir Noël is,
through his mother, the descendant of the last of the Scoto-Celtic
kings. Of his career as a painter it is not necessary to speak here. His
two volumes of poetry are Poems by a Painter (1861) and Spindrift
(1867). The best account of the life and work of this distinguished Scot
is the monograph recently published by Mr David Croal Thomson, as the
“Art-Annual” of The Art Journal. The two poems by which Sir Noël is
represented in this book are not to be found in either of his volumes,
and their appearance here is due to the courtesy of the author.
WILLIAM RENTON.
PAGE 274
Mr Renton was born in Perthshire, of Scoto-Celtic parents. “Mountain
Twilight” is taken from his first volume of poems called Oils and Water
Colours (Hamilton, Edinburgh, 1876). Mr Renton’s only other volume of
verse is his Songs (Fisher Unwin, 1893).
LADY JOHN SCOTT.
PAGE 275
The author of “Durisdeer” was of mixed Highland and Lowland descent. Her
poem has a permanent place in our literature because of its haunting
passion and pain.
EARL OF SOUTHESK.
PAGE 276
Lord Southesk (James Carnegie) was bom in 1827. He first made his name
in literature by his strange and vigorous Jonas Fisher (1875). This
was followed by Greenwood’s Farewell (1876), and The Meda Maiden
(1877); though most of the poems contained in these two volumes, with
several others, are comprised in The Burial of Isis (1884).
JOHN CAMPBELL SHAIRP.
PAGE 277
This able Scottish writer was of Celtic origin through his mother.
Readers unacquainted with the poems of the late Principal Shairp, and
ex-Professor of Poetry at Oxford, will do best to turn to the posthumous
volume, edited, with a memoir, by Francis Turner Palgrave, entitled
Glen Dessary (Macmillan, 1888).
UNA URQUHART.
PAGE 279
I know nothing else of Gaelic or English verse by this young writer. “An
Old Tale of Three,” as it appears here, is a rendering of the original
by Miss Fiona Macleod.
LOST LOVE.
PAGE 280
The author of this poem is unknown. The original is in the Gaelic of the
Western Isles, and is one of the several fugitive songs rescued by
Thomas Pattison. The version given here, however, is not identical with
his, the first and last quatrains having been added by another hand.
GEORGE MEREDITH.
PAGE 283
Mr George Meredith, who recently has been addressed in a dedication as
“The Prince of Celtdom,” is rather the sovereign of contemporary English
literature. Although of Welsh descent and sympathies, and with a nature
pre-eminently Celtic in its distinguishing characteristics, Mr Meredith
was born in Hampshire on February 12th, 1828. Part of his early
education was received in Germany, and after his return to England it
was intended that he should pursue the legal profession: an intention
set aside on account of an irresistible bias toward literature. His
first published writings were in verse: and now this early little book,
Poems, published in his twenty-third year (1851) is one of the rarest
treasures for the bibliophile. It is dedicated to Thomas Love Peacock,
whose intellectual influence upon the young writer is obvious. In 1850
the poet married the daughter of Peacock, but it was not till a year or
two later that he definitely set himself to the profession of literature
as also a means of livelihood. It is characteristic of him that his
first prose book should be one of his most individual writings; for The
Shaving of Shagpat might have been written at almost any period of its
author’s career. A fascinating and perplexing production it must indeed
have seemed at that time, published as it was in a year which, with the
exception of two radically distinct American works of pre-eminent note,
Longfellow’s Hiawatha and Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, was a
singularly barren one. The fantasy has always remained a favourite with
staunch Meredithians. It was followed two years later by the somewhat
akin Farina; and two years passed again before that first important
work appeared which so profoundly affected the minds and imagination of
Mr Meredith’s contemporaries—the now famous Ordeal of Richard
Feverel, (1859). Since that date Mr Meredith has given us what many
consider the greatest literary legacy of our time; and unquestionably he
has had no compeer in brilliant delineation of life at white heat. It is
unnecessary to specify the works of an author with which all lovers of
literature must be familiar; but a word must be added as to the delight
which the reading world has known this year in the publication of The
Amazing Marriage, one of the most brilliant and vivid of all Mr
Meredith’s romances, and, in its display of his characteristic quality
at his best, ranking with Harry Richmond, The Egoist, and Diana of
the Crossways. As a poet George Meredith is less widely known, or,
rather, is less widely accepted. There are, nevertheless, many who
regard his poetic achievement as perhaps the most essential part of what
he has given us. In depth of thought, in clarity of vision, and in
remarkable expressional subtlety,—often, if not invariably, set forth
in a lyric utterance whose only fault is that of an occasional apparent
incoherence due to rapidity of thought and eagerness of rhythmic
emotion—he stands here, as in all else, alone. From that
extraordinarily powerful study of contemporary life, expressed
emotionally and rhythmically in singularly convincing verse, Modern
Love, to his latest volume, The Empty Purse, there is a range of
rhythmic and lyric beauty which may well be a challenge to posterity to
redeem the relative neglect of the mass of Mr Meredith’s contemporaries.
I am not of those who consider Mr Meredith’s least popular poems as mere
cryptic utterances in verse; for everywhere I find the lyric
spirit,—hampered, at times, it is true, by a wind-rush of images, and
by a sudden drove of unshepherded words. But who could read “Love in the
Valley,” “The Lark Ascending,” “The Woods of Westermain,” “The
South-Wester,” “The Hymn to Colour,” to mention five only, without
recognising that here indeed we have one of the great poets of our time.
The poems by which, owing to the gracious courtesy of Mr Meredith—who
has consented to forego for once his great objection to the appearance
of any of his poems in miscellaneous collections—he is here
represented, are from his later volumes. The “Dirge in Woods,” “Outer
and Inner,” and the superb “Hymn to Colour,” are from A Reading of
Earth (1888), the volume which contains “Hard Weather,” “The
South-Wester,” “The Thrush in February,” “The Appeasement of Demeter,”
“Woodland Peace,” the noble ode “Meditation under Stars,” and that
flawless and memorable sonnet, “Winter Heavens.” The “Night of Frost in
May” is from the volume entitled The Empty Purse (1892). Mr Meredith’s
other volume of poetry, the favourite with most of his readers, is
Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth (1883). This book includes “The
Woods of Westermain,” “The Day of the Daughter of Hades,” “The Lark
Ascending,” “Phœbus with Admetus,” “Melampus,” “Love in a Valley,” and
the group of sonnets beginning with “Lucifer in Starlight,” and ending
with “Time and Sentiment.” All Mr Meredith’s poetical writings are now
published by Messrs Macmillan.
SEBASTIAN EVANS.
PAGE 292
Born in 1830, the grandson of the Rev. Lewis Evans, a well-known Welsh
astronomer, and the son of the Rev. Arthur Benoni Evans, a linguist,
scholar, and author. He was not the only one of this parentage who came
to some distinction, for his brother, John Evans, F.R.S., became
President of the Society of Antiquaries, and his sister, Anne, had some
repute as a poetess and musician. Sebastian Evans won a fair measure of
fugitive fame by his Brother Fabian’s Manuscript and Other Poems
(Macmillan, 1865). In the early ’70’s Dr Evans published his second
volume, In the Studio: a Decade of Poems (Macmillan). The true note of
his strangely subtle and illusive muse is not that of either irony or
audacity as commonly supposed, but rather a living belief in the passage
of the contemporary mind and aspiration from the sureties of the ancient
faith to the assurance of a still finer faith to come. Among his short
poems perhaps the most indicative is that entitled “The Banners”—
Lordly banners, waving to the stars,
Flap upon the night-wind, heavy with the dew,
Trustful youth is wending to the wars,
Strong in ancient faith to battle with the new.
Lordly banners, trodden in the clay,
Lie upon the mountain dank with other dew,
Hapless Youth hath lost the bloody day,
Ancient faith is feeble, stronger is the new.
Lordly banners, other than of yore,
Flap upon the night-wind, heavy with the dew:
Youth to battle girdeth him once more,
New and Old are feeble,—mighty is the True!
EBENEZER JONES. (1820-1860.)
PAGE 293
Of Welsh parentage and descent, Ebenezer Jones was born in Islington,
London. Much has been written upon the famous Chartist poet, both in his
relation to the socialistic movements in which he participated, and in
literary criticism of his two at one time much discussed volumes,
Studies of Sensation and Event (1843), and Studies of Resemblance and
Consent (1849); but perhaps the best critical summary of his life-work
is that of Mr Wm. J. Linton in Miles’ Poets and Poetry of the Century,
Vol. V. The two poems by which Ebenezer Jones is represented here are
respectively from his second and first volumes.
EMILY DAVIS (MRS PFEIFFER). (1841-1890.)
PAGE 296
Mrs Pfeiffer, many of whose poems achieved a wide popularity, was the
daughter of a Welsh gentleman settled in Oxfordshire, and an officer in
the army. She was born in Wales. Of her several volumes of verse, the
first was Gerard’s Monument, etc. (1873), and the best are Sonnets
and Other Songs, Under the Aspens (1884), and Sonnets (1887).
ERNEST RHYS.
PAGE 297
“The House of Hendra” is not given here intact: for the whole poem, see
A London Rose, etc. (Elkin Mathews). Mr Rhys is the most noteworthy of
the younger generation of Welsh poets and romancists, and may well be
accepted as the leader of the Neo-Celtic movement in Wales. He has in a
more marked degree than almost any of his compatriots of his own period
the gift of style; and already his enthusiasm, knowledge, and fine and
notable work in prose and verse have brought him to the front as the
recognised representative of young Wales. Of Welsh parentage, Mr Rhys
was born in London in 1860, spent much of his boyhood in South Wales,
and his youth and early manhood in the north-country, where he intended
to follow the profession of a mining engineer. However, he came to
London in the early ’eighties and settled down to literary work. His
first publication in book form was The Great Cockney Tragedy (1891).
His poems first became known to the outside reading world through his
contributions to The Book of the Rhymers’ Club (1893). In the
following year he published his first and as yet sole volume of verse:
A London Rose: and Other Rhymes, whence comes the fine “House of
Hendra” by which he is represented here. Besides other writings, in
prose, Mr Ernest Rhys was editor of the “Camelot Series” of popular
reprints and translations in 65 volumes (1885-1890), and now is critical
editor of The Lyric Poets (Dent), one of the most delightful
poets-series extant.
THOMAS EDWARD BROWN.
PAGE 307
Was born at Douglas, in the Isle of Man, in 1830. After a career of
exceptional distinction at Oxford, he was appointed Vice-Principal of
King William’s College in the Isle of Man (1855). Since 1863 he has been
assistant-master of Clifton College. The book by which Mr Brown is best
known is his admirable Fo’c’sle Yarns (Macmillan, 1881 and 1889),
though the first of his tales in verse included therein, “Betsy Lee,”
appeared in Macmillan’s Magazine in 1873 where it at once attracted
wide attention. He has also published The Doctor (1887) and The Manx
Witch (1889). The author of Fo’c’sle Yarns is by far the most
noteworthy poetic representative of the Isle of Man. In range, depth of
insight, dramatic vigour, keen sympathy, and narrative faculty, all
transformed by the alchemy of his poetic vision, he is not only the
foremost Manx poet, but one of the most notable of living writers in
verse. It is probably because most of his poems deal almost wholly with
Manx scenes and characters, and are for the most part written in the
Manx dialect, that he is so little talked of by literary critics and so
little known to the reading world at large. Than “Betsy Lee” (Fo’c’sle
Yarns) there is no more moving, human, and beautiful poem, of the
narrative kind, written in our time. The fragmentary lines by which the
author is represented here were selected from one of his most
characteristic Manx poems, and give a good idea of the common parlance
of the islanders of to-day. It is from The Doctor: and Other Poems
(Swan Sonnenschein, 1887).
HALL CAINE.
PAGE 309
This fine Manx ballad of “Graih my Chree” appeared this year in the
first number of London Home, to the editor and proprietor of which, as
well as to Mr Hall Caine, I am indebted for the permission to include
“Love of my Heart” here. Mr Caine, so celebrated as a novelist, has
published no volume of poems; but at rare intervals something of his in
verse has appeared. I think that his earliest appearance as a poet was
in Sonnets of this Century (1886, and later editions), where he is
represented by two fine sonnets, “Where Lies the Land to which my Soul
would go?” and “After Sunset.” Mr Caine’s own first acknowledged book
was an anthology of sonnets (Sonnets of Three Centuries, Stock, 1882),
published in the author’s twenty-seventh year. Of his many books, the
best known are his Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti; and his
romances, The Shadow of a Crime, The Deemster, The Bondman, The
Scapegoat, and The Manxman. Mr Hall Caine is himself a Manxman,
crossed with a strong strain of Cumberland blood. Both in his strength
and weakness he is eminently Celtic, after his own kind; for he could
belong to no other Celtic people than either the Manx or the Welsh. He
has, and not without good reason, been called the Walter Scott of Man.
Certainly, The Deemster and The Manxman alone have revealed Manxland
and Manx life and character to the great mass of English readers.
ARTHUR THOMAS QUILLER COUCH.
PAGE 317
So well known as “Q,” was born at Bodwin, in Cornwall, of an old Cornish
family, in 1863. He left Trinity College, Oxford, for London; but, after
a brief experience of literary life in the metropolis, returned to the
“Duchy,” and has since resided there, mainly at Fowey. He is not only
the most noteworthy living Cornishman of letters, and the romancer par
excellence of contemporary Cornwall and Cornish life, but is
acknowledged as one of the best story-tellers of the day. His first book
was The Splendid Spur (1889), a stirring romance, which was followed
by The Delectable Duchy, Noughts and Crosses, and I Saw Three
Ships. He has published little poetry; and even in his slender volume,
Green Bays (1893), there are not more than one or two poems, the other
verses being for the most part what are called “occasional.” If,
however, he had written nothing in verse except the lyric called “The
Splendid Spur,” he would be accounted a poet for remembrance. “The
White Moth” is the most distinctively Celtic poem he has written. In the
main, he is more Cornish than Celtic—in this a contrast to Dr Riccardo
Stephens, who is far more distinctively Celtic than Cornish.
ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER. (1804-1875.)
PAGE 319
The celebrated vicar of Morwenstow (born at Plymouth) came of an old
Cornish family, and spent the greater part of his life in the Duchy. In
1834 he became Vicar of Morwenstow, a remote parish on the Cornish
sea-board. His best-known book is Cornish Ballads (1869); but the
reader who may not be acquainted with his writings should consult the
Poetical Works, and Other Literary Remains, with a Memoir (1879).
Hawker has much of the sombre note which is supposed to be
characteristic of Celtic Cornwall.
RICCARDO STEPHENS.
PAGE 321
Dr Stephens is a Cornishman settled in Edinburgh, where he practises as
a physician. He has not, as yet, published any of his poems in book
form; but, none the less, has won (if necessarily, as yet, a limited)
reputation by his exceedingly vigorous and individual poems. He has
written several “Castle Ballads” (of which the very striking “Hell’s
Piper” given here is one)—poems suggested by legendary episodes
connected with Edinburgh Castle, or perhaps only vaguely influenced by
that romantically picturesque and grand vicinage—for Dr Stephens is one
of the many workers, thinkers, and dreamers who congregate in the
settlement founded by Professor Patrick Geddes on the site of Allan
Ramsay’s residence—“New Edinburgh,” as University Hall is sometimes
called, an apt name in more ways than one. Dr Stephens is a poet of
marked originality, and his work has all the Celtic fire and fervour,
with much of that sombre gloom which is held to be characteristically
Cornish. “Hell’s Piper” has lines in it of Dantesque vigour, as those
which depict, among “the shackled earthquakes,” the “reeking halls of
Hell,” and the torture-wrought denizens of that Inferno. “The Phantom
Piper” will never be forgotten by any one who has once read and been
thrilled by this highly-imaginative poem.
THE POOR CLERK (IN BRETON, “AR C’HLOAREK PAOUR”)
PAGE 331
is rather a mediæval than a modern folk-poem. The translation is that of
the late Tom Taylor (Ballads and Lyrics, Macmillan), who has the
following note upon it:—“The Klöarek is a seminarist of Tréguier, a
peasant who has a turn for books, or shows some vocation for the
priesthood. Their miserable life, hard study, and abnegation of family
life are provocative of regretful emotion, passionate and mystic
asceticism. The Klöarek is the poet and hero of most of the Breton
Sônes; Tréguier, therefore, is the nursery of the elegaic and
religious popular poetry of Brittany.”
THE CROSS BY THE WAY (KROAZ ANN HENT).
PAGE 332
Vide preceding Note. This translation is from the same source as last.
THE SECRETS OF THE CLERK, AND LOVE SONG.
PAGES 335-337
See Note to “The Poor Clerk.” The first of these poems was probably
composed in the transition period—late mediæval or early modern. Both
are given in the rendering of Mr Alfred M. Williams (vide “Folk-Songs
of Lower Brittany” in Studies in Folk-Song and Popular Poetry (1895)).
“The Love Song” is modern—probably circa 1800, or even 1750.
HERVÉ NOËL LE BRETON.
PAGE 338
For all particulars concerning this poet I must refer interested readers
to Mr W. J. Robertson’s brief memoir in that most delightful of all
books of translation, A Century of French Verse (A. D. Innes & Co.,
1895). This is without exception the ablest work of its kind we have. It
is the production of one who is unmistakably himself a poet, who has the
rare double power to translate literally, and at the same time with
subtle art and charm, so that the least possible loss in translation is
involved. In addition to these often exquisitely felicitous, and always
notably able and suggestive renderings, Mr Robertson has prefixed to
each representative selection a brief critical and biographical study of
the poet represented—short études of remarkable insight and critical
merit. Of Hervé Noël le Breton he gives some interesting particulars.
The poet is of the ancient Armorican race, and was born in Nantes in
1851. He has not yet published any volume; and it is from an unpublished
collection, Rêves et Symboles, that Mr Robertson has drawn. Strangely
enough, neither in Tiercelin’s Breton Anthology nor anywhere else can I
find any allusion to Hervé Noël le Breton: and his name is unknown to M.
Louis Tiercelin, M. Anatole le Braz, and M. Charles Le Goffic,
respectively the most eminent living Breton anthologist, Breton
folk-lorist, and Breton poet-romancist and critic. For several reasons I
take it that Le Breton is an assumed name; and it is even possible that
the Armorican blood is only in the brain, and not in the body of the
author of Rêves et Symboles. “The Burden of Lost Souls” is in three
parts, of which that given here is the first. Here is the second:
This is our doom. To walk for ever and ever
The wilderness unblest,
To weary soul and sense in vain endeavour
And find no coign of rest;
To feel the pulse of speech and passion thronging
On lips for ever dumb,
To gaze on parched skies relentless, longing
For clouds that will not come;
Thirsty, to drink of loathsome waters crawling
With nameless things obscene,
To feel the dews from heaven like fire-drops falling,
And neither shade nor screen;
To fill from springs illusive riddled vessels,
Like the Danaïdes,
To grapple with the wind that whirls and wrestles,
Knowing no lapse of ease;
To weave fantastic webs that shrink and crumble
Before they leave the loom,
To build with travail aëry towers that tumble
And temples like the tomb;
To watch the stately pomp and proud procession
Of splendid shapes and things,
And pine in silent solitary session
Because we have no wings;
To woo from confused sleep forlorn the dismal
Oblivion of despair;
To seek in sudden glimpse of dreams abysmal
Sights beautiful and rare,
And waking, wild with terror, see the vision
Cancelled in swift eclipse,
Mocked by the pallid phantoms of derision,
With spectral eyes and lips;
To turn in endless circles round these purlieus
With troops of spirits pale,
Whose everlasting song is like the curlew’s,
One ceaseless, changeless wail.
Mr Robertson gives four poems by this poet: “La Plainte des Damnés,”
“Vers les Etoiles,” “Le Tombeau du Poète,” and “Hymne au Sommeil.”
His translation of the last-named also appears in this anthology.
VILLIERS DE L’ISLE-ADAM. (1838-1889.)
PAGE 342
This famous French novelist and poet was born at St Brieuc, in Brittany,
of parents who were each of old Breton stock. The full details of the
life and work of Philippe-Auguste-Mathias de Villiers de l’Isle-Adam,
son of the Marquis Joseph de Villiers de l’Isle-Adam and his wife Marie
Françoise le Nepveu de Carfort, can be read in the recently-published
Life, by the late Vicomte Robert du Pontavice de Heussey—an English
translation of which, by Lady Mary Lloyd, was issued last year by Mr
Heinemann. This distinguished writer lived in misfortune, and died amid
darker shadows than those he had too long been bitterly acquainted with.
His first volume of poems was published when he was little more than
twenty years old—as Mr Robertson says, “one of the most remarkable ever
written by so young a poet.” The young Breton poet came under the strong
personal influence of Baudelaire, and in the process he lost much of his
native Celtic fire and spirituality. Besides the poems given here,
“Confession” (“D’aveu”) and “Discouragement” (“Découragement”), Mr
Robertson translates, in his Century of French Verse,
“Eblouissement” and “Les Présents.”
LECONTE DE LISLE. (1818-1894.)
PAGE 344
“The great Creole poet, Charles Marie René Leconte, known as Leconte de
Lisle, was the child of a Breton father and a Gascon mother, and was
born at St Paul, in the isle of Bourbon (Réunion) in 1818. He had the
Celtic clearness of vision and love of beauty, and the vigour and
courage of the Pyrenean race. In his youth he travelled through the East
Indies, and the vivid impressions of tropical colour and warmth which
are visible in his poetry derive their value from the personal
observation of Nature in those regions” (W. J. Robertson, A Century of
French Verse). Leconte de Lisle, one of the greatest of modern French
poets, is assured of immortality by his beautiful trilogy:—Poèmes
Antiques (1852), Poèmes Barbares (1862), and Poèmes Tragiques
(1884). The reader who, unfamiliar with this poet, wishes to know more
of Leconte de Lisle and his work, cannot do better than turn first to Mr
Robertson’s biographical and critical memoir in A Century of French
Verse. There, too, he will find five poems from Poèmes Antiques,
including the long “Dies Iræ”; two from Poèmes Barbares, and two
from Poèmes Tragiques. Of the two given here, the first (“The Black
Panther”) is from Poèmes Barbares, and “The Spring” (“La Source”)
from Poèmes Antiques. Leconte de Lisle strove after an ideal
perfection of form. The spirit of that almost flawless work of his, is
of intellectual emotion rather than of passion; but in colour, and
splendour of imagery, no romanticist can surpass him. He is of the great
minds who create, calm and serene. He is often classed with the two
great master-spirits of modern German and French literature; but, while
he has neither the lyric rush nor epic sweep of Victor Hugo, nor the
philosophical modernity and innate human sentiment of Gœthe, he is much
more akin to the latter than to the former. For the rest, to quote Mr
Robertson, “he gives the noblest expression to human revolt and desire,
to ideal dreams, and to the pure and sometimes pathetic love of external
nature.”
LEO-KERMORVAN.
PAGE 348
Leo-Kermorvan has been represented here as one of the most distinctively
Celtic of the contemporary Breton poets. In translating his “Taliesen,”
as well as Louis Tiercelin’s “By Menec’hi Shore,” I have endeavoured to
convey the atmosphere, as well as to be literal; and, partly to this
end, and partly because of a personal preference for unrhymed metrical
translation, have not ventured to make a rhymed paraphrase. M. Kermorvan
is a poet worthy to be named with his two most notable living
compatriots, Tristran Corbière and Charles Le Goffic.
LOUIS TIERCELIN.
PAGE 351
(See foregoing note.) M. Tiercelin is a Breton poet and critic, perhaps
best known as co-editor of the Parnasse de la Bretagne. No more
characteristic Breton poem, apart from folk-poetry, could close Lyra
Celtica. It is the keynote of the poetry that is common to all the
Celtic races.
THE CELTIC FRINGE
BLISS CARMAN.
PAGE 355
Mr Bliss Carman, the trans-Atlantic poet who, it seems to me, has the
most distinctive note of any American poet (and the word “American” is
used in its widest sense), is of Scoto-Celtic descent through his
father’s side, and of East-Anglian through the maternal side; but was
born of a family long settled in Canada—viz., at Fredericton, New
Brunswick, in 1861. His poetry is intensely individual, and with a lyric
note at once poignant and reserved. Work of very high quality is
expected of him, on both sides of the Atlantic; for his beautiful lyrics
and poems have appeared in the periodicals of both countries. His slight
volume, Low Tide on Grand-Pré (1893), is published in this country by
Mr Nutt. About half of the Songs from Vagabondia (written in
collaboration with Mr Richard Hovey) are of his authorship. This book,
published in 1894 by Messrs Stone & Kimball of Chicago, is to be had
here through Mr Elkin Mathews. It is from the Songs that the stirring
war-chant of “Gamelbar” comes.
ELLEN MACKAY HUTCHINSON.
PAGE 361
This distinguished American lady is descended from old Highland stock. I
know of no other book by her than Songs and Lyrics (Boston, Osgood &
Co., 1881), but that is one which all lovers of poetry should possess.
Miss Hutchinson’s name is best known in connection with that colossal
and invaluable work, the Cyclopædia of American Literature (eleven
vols.), in which she was the collaborator of Mr Edmund Clarence Stedman.
HUGH M‘CULLOCH.
PAGE 364
This descendant of an old Highland family is the author of The Quest of
Heracles (Stone & Kimball, Chicago, 1894).
DUNCAN CAMPBELL SCOTT.
PAGE 365
Mr Scott is a member of one of the many Scoto-Celtic families settled in
Canada. He was born at Ottawa in 1862, and is the author of The Magic
House (1893).
THOMAS D’ARCY M‘CGEE. (1821-1868.)
PAGE 366
This distinguished Irishman is to be accounted only an adopted American.
He emigrated to the States in 1842, edited The Boston Pilot, and in
1857 went to Montreal and entered the Canadian Parliament. It was when
returning from a night-session that he was assassinated in Ottawa by
Fenian malcontents.
MARY C. G. GILLINGTON (MRS BYRON) AND ALICE E. GILLINGTON.
PAGES 368-373
These two sisters, whose names have become so deservedly well-known by
their contributions to British and American periodicals, are of Celtic
blood, though born and resident in England. They are included here as
representative of the Anglo Celtic strain so potent in England itself.
The elder, Mrs Byron, was born in Cheshire in 1861. Their joint volume,
Poems, was published in 1892. Mr Elkin Mathews has just published a
volume entitled, A Little Book of Lyrics, by Mrs Byron.
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