JACOBITE BALLADS.

'Mary Ruane, that you would stand in a fair to look at, the best-dressed woman in the place; John Cosgrave, the best a woman ever reared; your mother thought that if a hundred were drowned, your swimming would take thesway; but the boat went down, and when I got up early on Friday, I heard the keening and the clapping of women's hands, with the women that were drowsy and tired after the night there, without doing anything but laying out the dead.'

There are laments for other things besides death. A man taken up 'not for sheep-stealing or any crime, but just for making a drop ofpoteen,' tells of his hardships in Galway gaol. A lover who has enlisted because he cannot get the girl he loves—'a pity I not to be going to Galway with my heart's love on my arm'—tells of his hardships in the army: 'The first day I enlisted I was well pleased and satisfied; the second day I was vexed and tormented; and the third day I would have given a pound if I had it to get my pardon.' And I have heard a song 'made by a woman out of her wits, that lost her husband and married again, and her three sons enlisted,' who cannot forgive herself for having driven them from home. 'If it was in Ballinakill I had your bones, I would not be half so much tormented after you; but you to be standing in the army of the Gall, and getting nothing after it but the bit in your mouth.'

Here is a song of daily life, in which a girl laments the wandering and covetous appetite of her cow:—

'It is following after the white cow I spent last night; and, indeed, all I got by it was the bones of an old goose. Do you hear me, Michael Taylor? Give word to your uncle John that, unless he can lay his hand on her, Nancy will lose her wits.'It's what she is wanting, is the three islands of Aran for herself; Brisbeg, that is in Maimen, and the glens of MaamCross; all round about Oughterard, and the hills that are below it; John Blake's farm where she often does be bellowing; and as far as Ballinamuca, where the long grass is growing; and it's in the wood of Barna she'd want to spend her life.'And when I was sore with walking through the dark hours of the night, it's the coastguard came crying after her, and he maybe with a bit of her in his mouth.'

'It's what she is wanting, is the three islands of Aran for herself; Brisbeg, that is in Maimen, and the glens of MaamCross; all round about Oughterard, and the hills that are below it; John Blake's farm where she often does be bellowing; and as far as Ballinamuca, where the long grass is growing; and it's in the wood of Barna she'd want to spend her life.

'And when I was sore with walking through the dark hours of the night, it's the coastguard came crying after her, and he maybe with a bit of her in his mouth.'

The little sarcastic hit at the coastguard, who may himself have stolen the cow he joins in the search for, is characteristic of Aran humour. The comic song, as we know it, is unknown on the islands; the nearest to it I have heard there is about the awkward meeting of two suitors, a carpenter and a country lad, at their sweetheart's house, and of the clever management of her mother, who promised to give her to the one who sang the best song, and how the country lad won her.

Douglas Hyde, who is almost a folk-poet, the people have taken so many of his songs to their heart, has caught this sarcastic touch in this 'love' song:—

'O sweet queen, to whom I gave my love; O dear queen, the flower of fine women; listen to my keening, and look on my case; as you are the woman I desire, free me from death.'He speaks so humbly, humble entirely. Without mercy or pity she looks on him with contempt. She puts mispleading in her cold answer; there is a drop of poison in every quiet word:—'"O man, wanting sense, put from you your share of love; it is bold you are entirely to say such a thing as that; you will not get hate from me; you will not get love from me; you will not get anything at all, good or bad, for ever."'I was myself the same night at the house of drink; and I saw the man, and he under the table. Laid down by the strength of wine, and without a twist in him itself; it was she did that much with the talk of her mouth.'

'O sweet queen, to whom I gave my love; O dear queen, the flower of fine women; listen to my keening, and look on my case; as you are the woman I desire, free me from death.

'He speaks so humbly, humble entirely. Without mercy or pity she looks on him with contempt. She puts mispleading in her cold answer; there is a drop of poison in every quiet word:—

'"O man, wanting sense, put from you your share of love; it is bold you are entirely to say such a thing as that; you will not get hate from me; you will not get love from me; you will not get anything at all, good or bad, for ever."

'I was myself the same night at the house of drink; and I saw the man, and he under the table. Laid down by the strength of wine, and without a twist in him itself; it was she did that much with the talk of her mouth.'

There is another that I thought was meant to provoke laughter, the lament of a girl for her 'beautiful comb' that had been carried off by her lover, whom she had refused to marry, 'until we take a little more out of our youth,' and invites instead to 'come with me to Eochaill reaping the yellow harvest.' Then he steals the comb, and the mother gives her wise advice how to get it back:—

'He will go this road to-morrow, and let you welcome him; settle down a wooden chair in the middle of the house; snatch the hat from him, and do not give him any ease until you get back the beautiful comb that was high on the back of your head.'

But an Aran man has told me: 'No, this is a very serious song; it was meant to praise the girl, and to tell what a loss she had in the comb.'

I am told that the song that makes most mirth in Aran is 'The Carrageen'; the day-dream of an old woman, too old to carry out her purpose, of all she will buy when she has gathered a harvest of the Carrageen moss, used by invalids:—

'If I had two oars and a little boat of my own, I would go pulling the Carrageen; I would dry it up in the sun; I would bring a load of it to Galway; it would go away in the train, to pay the rent to Robinson, and what is over would be my own.'It is long I am hearing talk of the Carrageen, and I never knew what it was. If I spent the last spring-tide at it, and I to take care of myself, I would buy a gown and a long cloak and a wide little shawl; that, and a dress cap, with frills on every side like feathers.''(This is what the Calleac said, that was over a hundred years old:—)'"I lost the last spring-tide with it, and I went into sharp danger. I did not know what the Carrageen was, or anything at all like it; but I will have tobacco from this out, if I lose the half of my fingers!"'

'It is long I am hearing talk of the Carrageen, and I never knew what it was. If I spent the last spring-tide at it, and I to take care of myself, I would buy a gown and a long cloak and a wide little shawl; that, and a dress cap, with frills on every side like feathers.'

'(This is what the Calleac said, that was over a hundred years old:—)

'"I lost the last spring-tide with it, and I went into sharp danger. I did not know what the Carrageen was, or anything at all like it; but I will have tobacco from this out, if I lose the half of my fingers!"'

This is a little song addressed by a fisherman to his little boat, his curragh-cin:—

'There goes my curragh-cin, it is she will get the prize; she will he to-night in America, and back again with the tide....'I put pins of oak in her, and oars of red pine; and I made her ready for sailing; for she is the six-oared curragh-cin that never gave heed to the storm; and it is she will be coming to land, when the sailing boats will be lost.'There was a man came from England to buy my little boat from me; he offered me twenty guineas for her; there were many looking on. If he would offer me as much again, and a guinea over and above, he would not get my curragh-cin till she goes out and kills the shark.'

'There goes my curragh-cin, it is she will get the prize; she will he to-night in America, and back again with the tide....

'I put pins of oak in her, and oars of red pine; and I made her ready for sailing; for she is the six-oared curragh-cin that never gave heed to the storm; and it is she will be coming to land, when the sailing boats will be lost.

'There was a man came from England to buy my little boat from me; he offered me twenty guineas for her; there were many looking on. If he would offer me as much again, and a guinea over and above, he would not get my curragh-cin till she goes out and kills the shark.'

For a shark will sometimes flounder into the fishing-nets and tear his way out; and even a whale is sometimes seen. I remember an Aran man beginning some story he was telling me with: 'I was going down that path one time, with the priest and afew others; for a whale had come ashore, and the jaw-bones of it were wanted, to make the piers of a gate.'

As for the love-songs of our coast and island people, they seem to be for the most part a little artificial in method, a little strained in metaphor perhaps so giving rise to the Scotch Gaelic saying: 'as loveless as an Irishman.' Love of country,tir-gradh, is I think the real passion; and bound up with it are love of home, of family, love of God. Constancy and affection in marriage are the rule; yet marriage 'for love' is all but unknown; marriage is a matter of commonsense arrangement between the heads of families. As Mr. Yeats puts it, the countryman's 'dream has never been entangled by reality.' However this may be, my Aran friends tell me: 'The people do not care for love-songs; they would rather have any others.'

Yet I have just seen some love-songs, taken down the other day by a Kinvara man from a Connemara man, that have some charming lines:—

'Going over the hills after parting from the store of my heart, there is a mist on them and the darkness of night.'

'It is my sharp grief, my thousand treasures, my road not to be to the door of your house; it is with you I wore out my shoes from the beginning of my youth until now.'

'It is not sorry I would be if there was the length of a year in the day, and the leaves of the trees dropping honey; I myself on the side where theblossoms are falling, my love beside me, and a little green branch in her hand.'

'She goes by me like a little breeze of the wind.'

And this line that in a country of separations is already, they tell me, 'passing into a proverb':—

'It is far from one another our rising is every day.'

But the tradition of classical allusions, brought in some centuries ago, joined to the exaggeration that has been the breath of Irish poets, from the time Naoise called Deirdre 'a woman brighter than the sun,' has brought monotony into most of the love-songs.

The ideal country girl, with her dew-grey eye and long amber hair, is always likened to Venus, to Juno, to Deirdre. 'I think she is nine times nicer than Deirdre,' says Raftery, 'or I may say Helen, the affliction of the Greeks'; and he writes of another country girl, that she is 'beyond Venus, in spite of all Homer wrote on her appearance, and Cassandra also, and Io that bewitched Mars; beyond Minerva, and Juno, the king's wife'; and he wishes 'they might be brought face to face with her, that they might be confused':—

'She comes to me like a star through the mist; her hair is golden and goes down to her shoes; her breast is the colour of white sugar, or like bleached bone on the card-table; her neck is whiter than the froth of the flood, or the swan coming from swimming.... If France and Spain belonged to me, I'd give it up to be along with you.'

And he gives 'a thousand praises to God, that I didn't lose my wits on account of her.' Raftery puts distinction into each one of his songs; but when lesser poets, echoing the voices of so many generations, bring in the same goddesses, and the same exaggerations, and the same amber hair, monotony brings weariness at last.

There is an Aran song, 'Brigid na Casad,' that has more originality than is usual:—

'Brigid's kiss was sweeter than the whole of the waters of Lough Erne; or the first wheaten flour, worked with fresh honey into dough; there are streams of bees' honey on every part of the mountain, there is brown sugar thrown on all you take, Brigid, in your hand.'It is not more likely for water to change than for the mind of a woman; and is it not a young man without courage will not run the chance nine times? It's not nicer than you the swan is when he comes to the shore swimming; it's not nicer than you the thrush is, and he singing from tree to tree.'

'It is not more likely for water to change than for the mind of a woman; and is it not a young man without courage will not run the chance nine times? It's not nicer than you the swan is when he comes to the shore swimming; it's not nicer than you the thrush is, and he singing from tree to tree.'

And here is another, homely in the extreme in the beginning, and suddenly rising to wild exaggeration:—

'Late on the evening of last Monday, and it raining, I chanced to come into Seaghan's and I sat down. It is there I saw her near me in the corner of the hearth; and her laugh was better to me than to have her eyes down; her hair was shining like the wool of a sheep, and brighter than the swan swimming. It is then I asked who owned her, and it is with Frank Conneely she was.'It is a good house belongs to Frank Conneely, the people say that do be going to it; plenty of whiskey and punch going round, and food without stint for a man to get; and it is what I think the girl is learned, for she has knowledge of booksand of the pen, and a schoolmaster coming to teach her every day.'The troop is on the sea, sailing eternally, and looking always on my Nora Ban. Is it not a great sin, she to be on a bare mountain, and not to be dressed in white silk, and the king of the French coming to the island for her, from France or from Germany?'Is it not nice the jewel looked at the races and at the church in Barna? She took the sway there as far as the big town. Is she not the nice flower with the white breast, the comeliness of a woman? and the sun of summer pleased with her, shining on her at every side, and hundreds of men in love with her.'It is I would like to run through the hills with her, and to go the roads with her; and it is I would put a cloak around my Nora Ban.'

'It is a good house belongs to Frank Conneely, the people say that do be going to it; plenty of whiskey and punch going round, and food without stint for a man to get; and it is what I think the girl is learned, for she has knowledge of booksand of the pen, and a schoolmaster coming to teach her every day.

'The troop is on the sea, sailing eternally, and looking always on my Nora Ban. Is it not a great sin, she to be on a bare mountain, and not to be dressed in white silk, and the king of the French coming to the island for her, from France or from Germany?

'Is it not nice the jewel looked at the races and at the church in Barna? She took the sway there as far as the big town. Is she not the nice flower with the white breast, the comeliness of a woman? and the sun of summer pleased with her, shining on her at every side, and hundreds of men in love with her.

'It is I would like to run through the hills with her, and to go the roads with her; and it is I would put a cloak around my Nora Ban.'

The verynaïveté, the simplicity of these ballads, make one feel that the peasants who make and sing them may be trembling on the edge of a great discovery; and that some day—perhaps very soon—one born among them will put their half-articulate, eternal sorrows and laments and yearnings into words that will be their expression for ever, as was done for the Hebrew people when the sorrow of exile was put into the hundred and thirty-seventh Psalm, and the sorrow of death into the lament for Saul and Jonathan, and the yearning of love into what was once known as 'the ballad of ballads,' the Song of Solomon.

I have one ballad at least to give, that shows, even in my prose translation, how near that day may be, if the language that holds the soul of our West Irishpeople can be saved from the 'West Briton' destroyer. There are some verses in it that attain to the intensity of great poetry, though I think less by the creation of one than by the selection of many minds; the peasants who have sung or recited their songs from one generation to another, having instinctively sifted away by degrees what was trivial, and kept only what was real, for it is in this way the foundations of literature are laid. I first heard of this ballad from the South; but when I showed it to an Aran man, he said it was well known there, and that his mother had often sung it to him when he was a child. It is called 'The Grief of a Girl's Heart':—

'O Donall og, if you go across the sea, bring myself with you and do not forget it; and you will have a sweetheart for fair days and market days, and the daughter of the King of Greece beside you at night.'It is late last night the dog was speaking of you; the snipe was speaking of you in her deep marsh. It is you are the lonely bird through the woods; and that you may be without a mate until you find me.'You promised me, and you said a lie to me, that you would be before me where the sheep are flocked; I gave a whistle and three hundred cries to you, and I found nothing there but a bleating lamb.'You promised me a thing that was hard for you, a ship of gold under a silver mast; twelve towns with a market in all of them, and a fine white court by the side of the sea.'You promised me a thing that is not possible, that you would give me gloves of the skin of a fish; that you would give me shoes of the skin of a bird; and a suit of the dearest silk in Ireland.'O Donall og, it is I would be better to you than a high,proud, spendthrift lady: I would milk the cow; I would bring help to you; and if you were hard pressed, I would strike a blow for you.'O, ochone, and it's not with hunger or with wanting food, or drink, or sleep, that I am growing thin, and my life is shortened; but it is the love of a young man has withered me away.'It is early in the morning that I saw him coming, going along the road on the back of a horse; he did not come to me; he made nothing of me; and it is on my way home that I cried my fill.'When I go by myself to the Well of Loneliness, I sit down and I go through my trouble; when I see the world and do not see my boy, he that has an amber shade in his hair.'It was on that Sunday I gave my love to you; the Sunday that is last before Easter Sunday. And myself on my knees reading the Passion; and my two eyes giving love to you for ever.'O, aya! my mother, give myself to him; and give him all that you have in the world; get out yourself to ask for alms, and do not come back and forward looking for me.'My mother said to me not to be talking with you to-day, or to-morrow, or on the Sunday; it was a bad time she took for telling me that; it was shutting the door after the house was robbed.'My heart is as black as the blackness of the sloe, or as the black coal that is on the smith's forge; or as the sole of a shoe left in white halls; it was you put that darkness over my life.'You have taken the east from me; you have taken the west from me; you have taken what is before me and what is behind me; you have taken the moon, you have taken the sun from me; and my fear is great that you have taken God from me!

'It is late last night the dog was speaking of you; the snipe was speaking of you in her deep marsh. It is you are the lonely bird through the woods; and that you may be without a mate until you find me.

'You promised me, and you said a lie to me, that you would be before me where the sheep are flocked; I gave a whistle and three hundred cries to you, and I found nothing there but a bleating lamb.

'You promised me a thing that was hard for you, a ship of gold under a silver mast; twelve towns with a market in all of them, and a fine white court by the side of the sea.

'You promised me a thing that is not possible, that you would give me gloves of the skin of a fish; that you would give me shoes of the skin of a bird; and a suit of the dearest silk in Ireland.

'O Donall og, it is I would be better to you than a high,proud, spendthrift lady: I would milk the cow; I would bring help to you; and if you were hard pressed, I would strike a blow for you.

'O, ochone, and it's not with hunger or with wanting food, or drink, or sleep, that I am growing thin, and my life is shortened; but it is the love of a young man has withered me away.

'It is early in the morning that I saw him coming, going along the road on the back of a horse; he did not come to me; he made nothing of me; and it is on my way home that I cried my fill.

'When I go by myself to the Well of Loneliness, I sit down and I go through my trouble; when I see the world and do not see my boy, he that has an amber shade in his hair.

'It was on that Sunday I gave my love to you; the Sunday that is last before Easter Sunday. And myself on my knees reading the Passion; and my two eyes giving love to you for ever.

'O, aya! my mother, give myself to him; and give him all that you have in the world; get out yourself to ask for alms, and do not come back and forward looking for me.

'My mother said to me not to be talking with you to-day, or to-morrow, or on the Sunday; it was a bad time she took for telling me that; it was shutting the door after the house was robbed.

'My heart is as black as the blackness of the sloe, or as the black coal that is on the smith's forge; or as the sole of a shoe left in white halls; it was you put that darkness over my life.

'You have taken the east from me; you have taken the west from me; you have taken what is before me and what is behind me; you have taken the moon, you have taken the sun from me; and my fear is great that you have taken God from me!

1901.

I was looking the other day through a collection of poems, lately taken down from Irish-speaking country people for theOireactas, the great yearly meeting of the Gaelic League; and a line in one of them seemed strange to me: 'Prebaim mo chroidhe le mo Stuart glegeal,' 'my heart leaps up with my bright Stuart'; for I did not know there was still a memory of James and Charles among the people. The refrain of the poem was: 'Och, my grief, my friend stole away from me!' and these are some of its verses:—

'There are young girls through the whole country would sit alongside of me through a half-hour, till we would be telling you the story together of what it was put myself under trouble; I make my complaints, wanting my comrade. Och, my grief, my friend stole away from me!'Where are my people that were wise and learned? Where is the troop readying their spears, that they do not smooth out this knot for me? Och, my grief, my friend stole away from me!'I was for a while airy and beautiful, and all my treasure with my pleasant James.... On the top of all, my Stuart to leave me. Och, my grief, my friend stole away from me!'It is the truth I cannot sleep in the night, fretting for my comrade; I to be lying down, and he weak under cold. My heart leaps up with my bright Stuart. Och, my grief, my friend stole away from me!'It is hard for me to lie down after that; it is an empty thing to be crying the loss of my comrade, and I lying down with the mean people; it is my death the Stuart not to come at all. Och, my grief, my friend stole away from me!'

'Where are my people that were wise and learned? Where is the troop readying their spears, that they do not smooth out this knot for me? Och, my grief, my friend stole away from me!

'I was for a while airy and beautiful, and all my treasure with my pleasant James.... On the top of all, my Stuart to leave me. Och, my grief, my friend stole away from me!

'It is the truth I cannot sleep in the night, fretting for my comrade; I to be lying down, and he weak under cold. My heart leaps up with my bright Stuart. Och, my grief, my friend stole away from me!

'It is hard for me to lie down after that; it is an empty thing to be crying the loss of my comrade, and I lying down with the mean people; it is my death the Stuart not to come at all. Och, my grief, my friend stole away from me!'

I had not heard any songs of this sort in Galway, and I remembered that our Connaught Raftery, whose poems are still teaching history, dealt very shortly with the Royal Stuarts. 'James,' he says, 'was the worst man for habits.... He laid chains on our bogs and mountains.... The father wasn't worse than the son Charles, that left sharp scourges on Ireland. When God and the people thought it time the story to be done, he lost his head.... The next James—sharp blame to him—gave his daughter to William as woman and wife; made the Irish English, and the English Irish, like wheat and oats in the month of harvest. And it was at Aughrim on a Monday many a son of Ireland found sorrow, without speaking of all that died.'

So I went to ask some of the wise old neighbours, who sit in wide chimney-nooks by turf fires, and to whom I go to look for knowledge of many things, if they knew of any songs in praise of the Stuarts. But they were scornful. 'The Stuarts?' one said; 'no, indeed; they have no songs about them here in the West, whatever they may have in the South. Why would they, running away and leaving the country? And what good did they ever do it?' And another, who lives on the Clare border, said: 'I used to hear them singing "The White Cockade" through thecountry. "King James was beaten, and all his well-wishers; my grief, my boy that went with them!" But I don't think the people had ever much opinion of the Stuarts; but in those days they were all prone to versify. But the famine did away with all that.' And then he also was scornful, and said: 'Sure King James ran all the way from the Boyne to Dublin, after the battle. There was a lady walking in the street at Dublin when he got there; and he told her the battle was lost; and she said: "Faith you made good haste; you made no delay on the road." So he said no more after that.'

And then he told me of the Battle of Aughrim, that is still such a terrible memory; and how the 'Danes'—the De Danaan—the mysterious divine race that were conquered by the Gael, and who still hold an invisible kingdom—'were dancing in the raths around Aughrim the night after the battle. Their ancestors were driven out of Ireland before; and they were glad when they saw those that had put them out put out themselves, and every one of them skivered.'

And another old man said: 'When I was a young chap knocking about in Connemara, I often heard songs about the Stuarts, and talk of them and of the blackbird coming over the water. But they found it hard to get over James making off after the Battle of the Boyne.' And another says of James: 'They liked him well before he ran; they didn't like him after that.'

And when I looked through the lately gathered bundle of songs again, and through some old collections of Jacobite songs in Irish, I found they almost all belonged to Munster. And if they are still sung there, it is not, I think, for the sake of the kings, but for the sake of the poets who made them—Red-haired Owen O'Sullivan, potato-digger, harvestman, hedge-schoolmaster, whose poems are still the joy of the Munster people; O'Rahilly, more learned, and as boundlessly redundant; O'Donnell, whose heart was set on translating Homer into Irish; O'Heffernan, the blind wanderer; and many others. For the Munstermen have always been more 'prone to versify' than their leaner neighbours on the bogs and stones of Connaught.

There is a common formula for most of these songs or 'Visions,'Aislinghe, as they are called. Just as artists of to-day find no monotony in drawing Ireland over and over again with her harp, her wolf-dog, and her round tower, so the Munster poets found no monotony in representing her as a beautiful woman, white-skinned, with curling hair, with cheeks in which 'the lily and the rose were fighting for mastery.' The poet asks her if she is Venus, or Helen, or Deirdre, and describes her beauty in torrents of alliterative adjectives. Then she makes her complaint against England, or her lament for her own sorrows or for the loss of her Stuart lover, spoken of sometimes as 'the bricklayer,' or 'the merchant's son.' The framework is artificial; but the laments are often very patheticthe love of Ireland, and the hatred of England born of that love, finding expression in them.

John O'Donnell sees her 'like a young queen that is going astray for the king being banished from her, that had a right to come and set her loose.' O'Rahilly, in one of his poems, shows the beautiful woman held to her Saxon lover by some strange enchantment:—

'I met brightness of brightness upon the path of loneliness; plaiting of plaiting in every lock of her yellow hair. News of news she gave me, and she as lonely as she was; news of the coming back of him that owns the tribute of the king.'Folly of follies I to go so near to her; slave I was made by a slave that put me in hard bonds. She made away from me then, and I following after her, till we came to a house of houses made by Druid enchantments.'They broke into mocking laughter, a troop of men of enchantments, and a troop of young girls with smooth-plaited hair. They put me up in chains; they made no delay about it; and my love holding to her breast an awkward ugly clown.'I told her then with the truest words I could tell her, it was not right for her to be joined with a common clumsy churl; and the man that was three times fairer than the whole race of the Scots, waiting till she would come to him to be his beautiful bride.'At the sound of my words her pride set her crying; the tears were running down over the kindling of her cheeks. She sent a lad to bring me safe from the place I was in. She is the brightness of brightness I met in the path of loneliness.'

'Folly of follies I to go so near to her; slave I was made by a slave that put me in hard bonds. She made away from me then, and I following after her, till we came to a house of houses made by Druid enchantments.

'They broke into mocking laughter, a troop of men of enchantments, and a troop of young girls with smooth-plaited hair. They put me up in chains; they made no delay about it; and my love holding to her breast an awkward ugly clown.

'I told her then with the truest words I could tell her, it was not right for her to be joined with a common clumsy churl; and the man that was three times fairer than the whole race of the Scots, waiting till she would come to him to be his beautiful bride.

'At the sound of my words her pride set her crying; the tears were running down over the kindling of her cheeks. She sent a lad to bring me safe from the place I was in. She is the brightness of brightness I met in the path of loneliness.'

Sometimes the Stuart is almost forgotten in the story of sorrows and the indictment of England. O'Heffernan complains in one of his songs that many of the heroes of Ireland have passed away, and theirnames have never been put in a song by the poets; 'and they even leave their verses without any account of Charles the wanderer, though I promise you they are not satisfied without giving some lines on Seaghan Buidhe' (one of the names for England). Yet he himself, when very downhearted, 'on the edge of the great wood under a harsh cloak of sorrow,' is cheered by the pleasant sound of a swarm of bees in search of their ruler; and with the pleasant thought that 'the harvest will be a bad one and with no joy in it to Seaghan. George will be sent back over the sea, and the tribe that was so high up will be left without gold or townlands; and I not pitying their sorrow.' And he winds up: 'In Shronehill, if I were stretched at rest under a hard flag, and to hear this story moving about so pleasantly, by force and strength of my shoulders I would throw the sod off me; and I coming back leaping to hear the news.'

And another writer, Seaghan Clarach, looks forward to seeing 'timid George tame upon the road, without wine, without meat, without thread for his shoes.' And his last verse, his 'binding,' is, 'I beseech of God, I ask and I pray very hard, to cast out the gluttons that tormented the generous race of the Gael, from the island of the west, under hard bonds, and to banish the foreign devils from us.'

For poets and people found it hard to forget Cromwell; and how 'the sons of the Gael are scorched, tormented, pitchforked, put under the yoke, by boors that are used to doing treachery.'

When the Stuarts come to mind, they are given fair words enough. 'The prince and heart-secret Charles that is sorrowful now and under weariness ... will be under esteem; and the Gael pleasant in the lime-white house.' ... 'It is friendly, fair bright, companionable, loving, brave, Charles will be, with sway, without a mist about him.'

And in one of Red Owen's 'Visions' he is told not to forget James, who is 'persevering, well-tempered, affectionate, stout, sweet, kind, poetical.'

Yet the Stuart seems to be always a faint and unreal image; a saint by whose name a heavy oath is sworn. There are no personal touches such as I find in a song taken down from some countryman, on Patrick Sarsfield, the brave, handsome fighter, the descendant of Conall Cearnach, the man who, after the Boyne, offered to 'change kings and fight the battle again.' This ballad seems to have more of Connaught simplicity than of Munster luxuriance in it:—

'O Patrick Sarsfield, health be to you, since you went to France and your camps were loosened; making your sighs along with the king, and you left poor Ireland and the Gael defeated—Och ochone!'O Patrick Sarsfield, it is a man with God you are; and blessed is the earth you ever walked on. The blessing of the bright sun and the moon upon you, since you took the day from the hands of King William—Och ochone!'O Patrick Sarsfield, the prayer of every person with you; my own prayer and the prayer of the Son of Mary with you, since you took the narrow ford going through Biorra, and since at Cuilenn O'Cuanac you won Limerick—Och ochone!'I will go up on the mountain alone; and I will come hither from it again. It is there I saw the camp of the Gael, the poor troop thinned, not keeping with one another—Och ochone!'My five hundred healths to you, halls of Limerick, and to the beautiful troop was in our company; it is bonfires we used to have and playing cards, and the word of God was often with us—Och ochone!'There were many soldiers glad and happy that were going the way through seven weeks; but now they are stretched down in Aughrim—Och ochone!'They put the first breaking on us at the Bridge of the Boyne; the second breaking on the Bridge of Slaney; the third breaking in Aughrim of O'Kelly; and O sweet Ireland, my five hundred healths to you—Och ochone!'O'Kelly has manuring for his land, that is not sand or dung, but ready soldiers doing bravery with pikes, that were left in Aughrim stretched in ridges—Och ochone!'Who is that beyond on the hill, Beinn Edair? I a poor soldier with King James. I was last year in arms and in dress, but this year I am asking alms—Och ochone!'

'O Patrick Sarsfield, health be to you, since you went to France and your camps were loosened; making your sighs along with the king, and you left poor Ireland and the Gael defeated—Och ochone!

'O Patrick Sarsfield, it is a man with God you are; and blessed is the earth you ever walked on. The blessing of the bright sun and the moon upon you, since you took the day from the hands of King William—Och ochone!

'O Patrick Sarsfield, the prayer of every person with you; my own prayer and the prayer of the Son of Mary with you, since you took the narrow ford going through Biorra, and since at Cuilenn O'Cuanac you won Limerick—Och ochone!

'I will go up on the mountain alone; and I will come hither from it again. It is there I saw the camp of the Gael, the poor troop thinned, not keeping with one another—Och ochone!

'My five hundred healths to you, halls of Limerick, and to the beautiful troop was in our company; it is bonfires we used to have and playing cards, and the word of God was often with us—Och ochone!

'There were many soldiers glad and happy that were going the way through seven weeks; but now they are stretched down in Aughrim—Och ochone!

'They put the first breaking on us at the Bridge of the Boyne; the second breaking on the Bridge of Slaney; the third breaking in Aughrim of O'Kelly; and O sweet Ireland, my five hundred healths to you—Och ochone!

'O'Kelly has manuring for his land, that is not sand or dung, but ready soldiers doing bravery with pikes, that were left in Aughrim stretched in ridges—Och ochone!

'Who is that beyond on the hill, Beinn Edair? I a poor soldier with King James. I was last year in arms and in dress, but this year I am asking alms—Och ochone!'

There are other symbolic songs besides the 'Visions.' Mangan's fine translation of Kathleen ni Houlihan is well known; and it is likely the king is calling to Ireland in 'Ceann dubh deelish,' that is beautiful in all translations. This isAn Craoibhin's:—

'The women of the village are in madness and trouble,Pulling their hair and letting it go with the wind;They will not take a boy of the men of the countryTill they go into the rout with the boys of the king.'Black head, darling, darling, darling,Black head, darling, move over to me;Black head brighter than swan and than seagull,It's a man without heart gives not love to thee.'

'Black head, darling, darling, darling,Black head, darling, move over to me;Black head brighter than swan and than seagull,It's a man without heart gives not love to thee.'

But most of the translations have been in the affected style of the early part of the last century twisting the sense to give what was thought to be a romantic turn. A verse of Seaghan Clarach's, for instance, the lament of a farmer 'who has been wrestling with the world': 'The two that belong to me are without shelter, and my yoke of cattle without grass, without growth; there is misery on my people and their elbows without sound clothes,' is turned into:—

'The loved ones my life would have nourishedAre foodless, and bare, and cold.My flocks by their fountain that flourishedDecay on the mountain wold.'

But there is one mistranslation for whose sake we must forgive many others, for it has given the sad refrain that has often been on Irish lips:—

'Seaghan O'Dwyer a Gleanna,We're worsted in the game!'

Here are one or two of the many verses sung to the Little Black Rose by her lovers, poor or royal:—

'There is love through and through me for you all the length of a year; sore love, vexing love, lasting love, love that left me without health, without a road, without running; and for ever, ever, without any sway at all over my Fair Black Rose.'I would travel through Munster with you, and the boundaries of the hills, if I thought I could find your secret, or a part of your love. O branch of the tree, it seems to me that you love me; that the flower of kind women is my Fair Black Rose.'

'I would travel through Munster with you, and the boundaries of the hills, if I thought I could find your secret, or a part of your love. O branch of the tree, it seems to me that you love me; that the flower of kind women is my Fair Black Rose.'

'My heart leaps up with my bright Stuart!' James and Charles are, I think, the only English kings whose names, as it were by accident, have found their way into Irish song. And it is likely they are the last to find a place there, for the imagination of Ireland still tilts the beam to the national side; and the loyalty the poets of many hundred years have called for, is loyalty to Kathleen ni Houlihan. 'Have they not given her their wills, and their hearts, and their dreams? What have they left for any less noble Royalty?'

1902.

'"I would much rather (and I take every occasion of making this protest) write, so to say, in a dead language and for a dead people, than write in those deaf and stammering (sorde e mute) tongues, French and English, notwithstanding they are the fashion with their rules and exercises." This is so with me. Alfieri wrote these words a hundred years ago, and they express what is in my own mind. I would like better to make even one good verse in the language in which I am now writing, than to make a whole book of verses in English. For if there should be any good found in my English verses, it would not go to the credit of my mother, Ireland, but of my stepmother, England.'

I have translated this from Douglas Hyde's preface to his little book of poems, lately published in Dublin,Ubhla de'n Craoibh, "Apples from the Branch."An Craoibhin Aoibhin, "The delightful little branch," is the name by which he is called all over Irish-speaking Ireland; and a gold branch bearing golden apples is stamped on the cover of his book. The poems had already been published, one by one, in a weekly paper; and a friend of mine tellsme he has heard them sung and repeated by country people in many parts of Ireland—in Connemara, in Donegal, in Galway, in Kerry, in the Islands of Aran.

Three or four of the thirty-three poems the book holds are, so to speak, official, written for the Gaelic League by its president; and these, like most official odes, are only for the moment. Some are ballads dealing with the old subjects of Irish ballads—emigration, exile, defeat, and death; for Douglas Hyde, as may be guessed from his preface, has, no less than his fellows—

'Hidden in his heart the flame out of the eyesOf Kathleen, the daughter of Houlihan.'

But these national ballads, though very popular, are, I think, not so good as his more personal poems. I suppose no narrative of what others have done or felt or suffered can move one like a flash from 'that little infinite, faltering, eternal flame that one calls oneself.' Even in my bare prose translation, this poem will, I think, be found to have as distinct a quality as that of Villon or of Heine:—

'There are three fine devils eating my heart—They left me, my grief! without a thing;Sickness wrought, and Love wrought,And an empty pocket, my ruin and my woe.Poverty left me without a shirt,Barefooted, barelegged, without any covering;Sickness left me with my head weakAnd my body miserable, an ugly thing.Love left me like a coal upon the floor,Like a half-burned sod, that is never put out,Worse than the cough, worse than the fever itself,Worse than any curse at all under the sun,Worse than the great povertyIs the devil that is called "Love" by the people.And if I were in my young youth again,I would not take, or give, or ask for a kiss!'

The next, in the form of a little folk-song, expresses the thought of the idealist of all time, that makes him cry, as one of the oldest of the poets cried long ago, 'Mine heritage is unto me as a speckled bird; the birds round about are against her.' Yet, with its whimsical fancies and exaggerations, it could hardly have been written in any but Irish air.

'It's my grief that I am not a little white duck,And I'd swim over the sea to France or to Spain;I would not stay in Ireland for one week only,To be without eating, without drinking, without a full jug.'Without a full jug, without eating, without drinking,Without a feast to get, without wine, without meat,Without high dances, without a big name, without music;There is hunger on me, and I astray this long time.'It's my grief that I am not an old crow;I would sit for awhile up on the old branch,I could satisfy my hunger, and I not as I am,With a grain of oats or a white potato.'It's my grief that I am not a red fox,Leaping strong and swift on the mountains,Eating cocks and hens without pity,Taking ducks and geese as a conqueror.'It's my grief that I am not a fair salmon,Going through the strong full water,Catching the mayflies by my craft,Swimming at my choice, and swimming with the stream.'It's my grief that I am of the race of the poets;It would be better for me to be a high rock,Or a stone or a tree or an herb or a flowerOr anything at all, but the thing that I am.'

'Without a full jug, without eating, without drinking,Without a feast to get, without wine, without meat,Without high dances, without a big name, without music;There is hunger on me, and I astray this long time.

'It's my grief that I am not an old crow;I would sit for awhile up on the old branch,I could satisfy my hunger, and I not as I am,With a grain of oats or a white potato.

'It's my grief that I am not a red fox,Leaping strong and swift on the mountains,Eating cocks and hens without pity,Taking ducks and geese as a conqueror.

'It's my grief that I am not a fair salmon,Going through the strong full water,Catching the mayflies by my craft,Swimming at my choice, and swimming with the stream.

'It's my grief that I am of the race of the poets;It would be better for me to be a high rock,Or a stone or a tree or an herb or a flowerOr anything at all, but the thing that I am.'

The sympathy of the moods of nature with the moods of man is a traditional heritage that has come to us through the poets, from the old time when the three great waves of the sea answered to a cry of distress in Ireland, or when, as in Israel, the land mourned and the herbs of every field withered, for the wickedness of them that dwelt therein. The sea, and the winds blowing from the sea, can never be very far from the dweller in Ireland; and they echo the loneliness of the lonely listener.

'Cold, sharp lamentationIn the cold bitter windsEver blowing across the sky;Oh, there was loneliness with me!'The loud sounding of the wavesBeating against the shore,Their vast, rough, heavy outcry,Oh, there was loneliness with me!'The light sea-gulls in the air,Crying sharply through the harbours,The cries and screams of the birdsWith my own heart! Oh! that was loneliness.'The voice of the winds and the tide,And the long battle of the mighty war;The sea, the earth, the skies, the blowing of the winds.Oh! there was loneliness in all of them together.'

'Cold, sharp lamentationIn the cold bitter windsEver blowing across the sky;Oh, there was loneliness with me!

'The loud sounding of the wavesBeating against the shore,Their vast, rough, heavy outcry,Oh, there was loneliness with me!

'The light sea-gulls in the air,Crying sharply through the harbours,The cries and screams of the birdsWith my own heart! Oh! that was loneliness.

'The voice of the winds and the tide,And the long battle of the mighty war;The sea, the earth, the skies, the blowing of the winds.Oh! there was loneliness in all of them together.'

Here is a verse from another poem of loneliness:—

'It is dark the night is; I do not see one star at all;And it is dark and heavy my thoughts are that are scattered and straying.There is no sound about but of the birds going over my head—The lapwing striking the air with long-drawn, weak blowsAnd the plover, that comes like a bullet, cutting the night with its whistle;And I hear the wild geese higher again with their rough screech.But I do not hear any other sound, it is that increases my grief—Not one other cry but the cry and the call of the birds on the bog.'

Here is another, in which the storm outside and the storm within answer to one another:—

'The heavy clouds are threatening,And it's little but they'll take the roof off the house;The heavy thunder is answeringTo every flash of the yellow fire.I, by myself, within in my room,That is narrow, small, warm, am sitting,I look at the surly skies,And I listen to the wind.'I was light, airy, lively,On the young morning of yesterday;But when the evening came,I was like a dead man!I have not one jot of hopeBut for a bed in the clay;Death is the same as life to meFrom this out, from a word I heard yesterday.'

'I was light, airy, lively,On the young morning of yesterday;But when the evening came,I was like a dead man!I have not one jot of hopeBut for a bed in the clay;Death is the same as life to meFrom this out, from a word I heard yesterday.'

The next is very simple, and puts into more homely words the feeling of 'lonesomeness' that is looked upon as almost the worst of evils by the Irish countryman, as we see by his proverb: 'It is better to be quarreling than to be lonesome.' 'I would be lonesome in it,' is often the reason given for a refusal to go from bog or mountain cabin to some crowded place 'where there is not heed for one or love.'

'Oh! if there were in this worldAny nice little place,To be my own, my own for ever,My own only,I would have great joy—great ease—Beyond what I have,Without a place in the world where I can say:"This is my own."It's a pity for a man to know,And it's a pain,That there is no place in the worldWhere there is heed for him or love;That there is not in the world for himA heart or a handTo give help to himTo the mering of the next world.'It is hard and it is bitter,And a sharp grief,It is woe and it is pity,To be by oneself.It is nothing the way you are,To anyone at all.It is nothing the way you are,To yourself at last!'

It's a pity for a man to know,And it's a pain,That there is no place in the worldWhere there is heed for him or love;That there is not in the world for himA heart or a handTo give help to himTo the mering of the next world.

'It is hard and it is bitter,And a sharp grief,It is woe and it is pity,To be by oneself.It is nothing the way you are,To anyone at all.It is nothing the way you are,To yourself at last!'

I suppose the following may be called a political poem, from its elusive reference to Home Rule. I was not sure on the point myself; for I thought the wearer of the 'blue cloak and birds' feathers,' must be a fine lady, perhaps laying enchantment on the fields. But I heard some one ask theCraoibhinwho he meant, and his answer was: 'I suppose I was thinking of an aide-de-camp':—

'I am looking at my cows walking,What are you that would put me out of my luck?Can I not walk, can I not walk, can I not walk in my own fields?'I will not always be turned backwards.If there is need to be humble to you, great is my grief,If I cannot walk, if I cannot walk, if I cannot walk in my own fields.'It's little my respect, and it's little my desire,For your blue cloak, and your birds' feathers.Can I not walk, can I not walk, can I not walk in my own fields?'The day is coming as it's easy to see,When there shall not be among us the ugly like of you.And each one shall be walking, and each one shall be walking,Wherever shall be his will and his own desire.'

'I am looking at my cows walking,What are you that would put me out of my luck?Can I not walk, can I not walk, can I not walk in my own fields?

'I will not always be turned backwards.If there is need to be humble to you, great is my grief,If I cannot walk, if I cannot walk, if I cannot walk in my own fields.

'It's little my respect, and it's little my desire,For your blue cloak, and your birds' feathers.Can I not walk, can I not walk, can I not walk in my own fields?

'The day is coming as it's easy to see,When there shall not be among us the ugly like of you.And each one shall be walking, and each one shall be walking,Wherever shall be his will and his own desire.'

There are some love songs in the little volume. But their writer has had, in his beautiful translations of the 'Love Songs of Connacht,' to put such intensity of passion into English, that he must despair of putting any new wings to passion, or any new exaggeration into lovers' words. In one of theseConnacht songs, the lover says: 'Blacker is the sun when setting than your features, Mary!' And she answers back: 'Neither star nor sun shows one-third much light as your shadow!' Another lover says of the woman he desires: 'I will write largely of her, because of the thousands who hoped for her, and who have been lost; and a hundred men of these who still live, are in pain and under locks through love. And I myself am not free, but am a bondsman in bonds.' And another boasts of 'a love without littleness, without weakness; love from age till death, love from folly growing, love that shall send me close beneath the clay, love without a hope of the world, love without envy of fortune, love that left me outside in captivity, love of my heart beyond women.' Douglas Hyde's own love songs are quiet and staid in contrast to these; but nevertheless they have a sober charm. Here are the last verses of one of them:—

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